------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Could Clean Hazardous Wastes
Radiation Pill Distribution Will Expand
NRC to review safety issue at Wis. Energy nuke
Misplacing of gauge rates NRC hearing
Beyond the Limits
No DU found from 1988 A-10 crash in Remscheid
French union plans nuclear power cuts on April 16
US, Russia Show Goodwill but No Arms Breakthrough
BRITISH NUCLEAR WASTE TO BE SENT TO RUSSIA
Al Qaeda sought nuclear scientists
Powell Reports Progress in Arms Talks With Russia
NPT- NGO presentations April 10
Going Backwards: Nuclear-Tipped Interceptors Studied
"Planning to be Surprised"
U.S. finds no widespread corrosion at nuclear plants
Taking a Chance
Ohio Utility Offers Repair Plan
U.S. Questions Nuclear Plant's Repair Plan
Nuclear Waste Plan Not a Security Hazard - Ridge

MILITARY
Afghan Security Sweep Nets Rebel Suspects, Weapons
War Crimes Suspect Commits Suicide
Raytheon Gets Missile Radar Contract
Colombia Rebels Abduct Nine Provincial Lawmakers
Colombian Instability Concerns U.S.
Soldiers enforce poppy eradication
In New Rebuff to U.S., Sharon Pushes Military Sweep
Europeans Press Demands on Israel
Jenin: 'My mother ran for help. A soldier shot her in the head'
Israelis Pull Out of Some Areas, but Push Operations in Others
Israel Arrests More Than 4,000 Palestinians
Chomsky Connects Globalization & Space Domination
Russians: CIA Used Drugs to Recruit
Russia Says It Has Uncovered an American-Run Espionage Ring
Russians: CIA Used Drugs to Recruit
No court dates for America
World Criminal Court Is Ratified
Global tribunal becomes reality

POLICE / PRISONERS
Few defends hazmat unit to Congress
Feds Link Anti - Terrorism Databases

ENERGY AND OTHER
Industry: U.S. Could Tap Vast Geothermal Energy Sources
German SolarWorld says sales up 60 pct in 2001
Task Force Made Hasty Overture to Opponents
Signs Enron Bet on Price Increase Before California Power Shortage
Ultrasound Scrubs Water Filters
Bush administration
General Electric Offers Hudson River Settlement
Bush wants Congress to get rid of the 'dirty dozen'
Testing of Human Embryos Sought
Bush Presses Senate to Ban Cloning
Scientists Discover Produce Gene
China Announces Jump in AIDS Cases

ACTIVISTS
4/20 demo @ White House, 11 am for Palestine
Police prepared for IMF protests
2nd Day of Antigovernment Protests Slows Venezuela
Chavez Foes March in Venezuela, Head for Palace
Please, Dad, Tell Me: How Do I Stop Being Complicit?





-------- NUCLEAR

Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Could Clean Hazardous Wastes

April 11, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-11-09.html#anchor7

ORLANDO, Florida, A technique now used to remove caffeine from coffee could help remove radioactive particles and hazardous metals from mixtures of waste.

A research team at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory is developing an environmentally friendly method for using supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) and water to clean up contamination. In early tests, the technique removed almost all of the contaminants from materials exposed to the mixture.

The researchers believe the technique could be used to extract contaminants from containers and other types of waste generated by workers in laboratories and industrial plants. That would reduce the amount of wastes headed for hazardous waste landfills.

The Los Alamos team worked with a mixture of supercritical carbon dioxide and water, modified with the addition of a polyether. Their results were presented today at the 2002 meeting of the American Chemical Society.

By itself, supercritical CO2, which is CO2 under pressure and at a certain temperature, dissolves a number of materials, but now metal ions, said Los Alamos research team leader Mark McCleskey. But the only known way to use CO2 to extract metal ions was by combining it with a special kind of molecule known to combine with certain kinds of metals, a method with limited applications.

The Los Alamos team combined supercritical CO2 with an inert polyether that stabilizes water. They used the mixture, known as a microemulsion, to extract copper and europium from filter paper, wood, cement and activated carbon, recovering about 98 percent of the contaminants.

"We found that the metals targeted for extraction concentrated in the nanodroplets of water in the microemulsion, allowing us to separate the metals from the contaminated materials easily," McCleskey said. "In addition, the properties of this microemulsion allow penetration even into small pores of contaminated materials usually not accessible to bulk water."

Microemulsions are useful for extracting metals from waste, he explained, because the amount of water required is proportional to the amount of contaminant being removed, not to the amount of waste to be cleaned.

"The result is that grams of contaminants can be captured with just a few milliliters of water," McCleskey said.

-------- accidents and safety

Radiation Pill Distribution Will Expand

By Raymond McCaffrey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 11, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23421-2002Apr10?language=printer

Potassium iodide pills designed to guard against the effects of radiation will be distributed to all Maryland schools within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant and also made available to residents living in that fallout zone.

The distribution policy, worked out by state and local officials in five affected counties, including Calvert and St. Mary's, has not been formally announced.

However, Michael J. Sharon, chief of the emergency response division of the Maryland Department of the Environment, confirmed that those officials had agreed on general guidelines for distribution of the pills, and hoped to have the details "nailed down in the next couple of weeks."

"We believe we have arrived at a strategy that makes it available to the maximum number of people possible," Sharon said this week.

Seventy-five percent of affected Maryland residents live in St. Mary's, Calvert and Dorchester counties -- all within 10 miles of Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Maryland's only such facility. The rest of those affected live in Harford and Cecil counties, near the Peach Bottom nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.

St. Mary's County already has begun distributing pills. That effort, which began two weeks ago, involved delivery of doses to local schools within 10 miles of the facility. The pills also will be distributed to other residents at central locations.

On Tuesday, health and emergency management officials in Calvert presented a similar distribution plan to the county commissioners. The proposal, which will begin being implemented later this month, will involve delivery of the doses to schools in the fallout zone. The medication also will be available for residents to pick up at other locations. David Rogers, the county's health officer, explained that a nurse will be available to distribute the pills, which can help prevent thyroid damage, and educate those who pick them up.

"This is a very, very safe substance," Rogers said.

Affected residents will be able to get the pills on certain dates at certain schools, at the Health Department in Prince Frederick and at the Solomons firehouse.

Maryland received roughly 160,000 doses of potassium iodide -- or two doses for each of the 80,000 state residents who live within 10 miles of a reactor.

In January, Maryland became the second state to announce that it would accept the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's offer of potassium iodide. Sharon acknowledged then that Maryland's decision was strongly influenced by public reaction to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Like most states, it had advocated evacuating and sheltering residents in response to a nuclear plant emergency, but had not stockpiled potassium iodide, partly in fear that residents would become reliant on a pill offering limited protection.

"Evacuation is still our primary method," Sharon said.

----

NRC to review safety issue at Wis. Energy nuke

REUTERS USA:
April 11, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15419/newsDate/11-Apr-2002/story.htm

SAN FRANCISCO - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said its staff will meet with Wisconsin Electric, a unit of Wisconsin Energy , to review a potentially dangerous problem discovered last year at the company's Point Beach nuclear power station.

Tagged with a red safety code by the NRC, signifying a "high safety significance," the problem was found last November by plant operator Nuclear Management Co. in a backup cooling system.

While since corrected, a preliminary NRC review concluded the problem could have posed a serious safety threat under certain, though unusual, operating conditions.

Normal plant operations were not affected by the problem.

Subsequent inspections of the twin-reactor, 1,022-megawatt generating station might be ordered to ensure the problem does not recur, the NRC said.

NRC spokesman Jan Strasma said a date for the meeting with Wisconsin Electric has not been set.

Nuclear Management, which operates the plant, said new procedures have been put in place and new equipment installed to prevent the problem from reoccurring.

--------

Misplacing of gauge rates NRC hearing

April 11, 2002
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020411-99639544.htm

Personnel from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were to meet today with a Wisconsin firm that lost a gauge containing a sealed capsule of radioactive material in December and mistakenly sent it to China.

NRC staffers will meet with representatives of Stora Enso North America, a paper manufacturing company based in Wisconsin Rapids, for a "predecisional enforcement conference to discuss apparent violations of NRC regulations associated with the loss," the agency announced.

The gauge, which contained a capsule of cesium-137, was lost during dismantling of equipment and piping that Stora Enso North America sold to a paper mill in China, according to NRC spokesman Victor Dricks.

"The company has about 10 or 20 of these gauges that contained cesium-137, which they use to measure the thickness of paper during the manufacturing process," he said.

There were 200 millicuries of cesium-137 in the gauge that wound up in China. If removed from the metal camera-style device that encapsulated the radioactive material, Mr. Dricks said, it could expose someone carrying the gauge on his person to "many times the annual radiation exposure limit for an individual" and could cause "severe health effects," possibly even death.

The quarter-sized gauge that went to China was attached to a metal beam that was part of the equipment purchased by the Asian paper mill.

"The gauge should have been marked with yellow paint so the subcontractors dismantling that equipment wouldn't have taken it along," Mr. Dricks said.

He noted that an NRC inspector - not Stora Enso - discovered the gauge missing in January. A company representative traveled to China and found the gauge Jan. 31, still attached to a portion of the original piping.

The NRC said the gauge was locked in a secure, shielded position. As such, he said, it would not have presented a safety hazard. The gauge was placed in a secure location until arrangements could be made to return it to Wisconsin.

At the conference today at an NRC regional office in Lisle, Ill., consideration will be given to three apparent NRC safety violations the agency has identified:

•Failure to control and maintain constant surveillance of radioactive material.

•Failure to clearly label the gauge as containing radioactive material.

•Failure to ensure that the gauge was removed by persons licensed for such work.

Repeated attempts to reach Stora Enso North America yesterday were unsuccessful.

Mr. Dricks said, "there are about 2 million radioactive sources" across the United States. Users include medical facilities, industries, government agencies and nuclear power plants.

He said cases in which radioactive material is lost or misplaced are "infrequent."

More common, he said, are situations where devices containing radioactive material are stolen from jobs or work sites or are abandoned. In the past five years, there have been an average of 300 such cases per year, he said.

"There have been cases where [nuclear power] plants lost entire fuel rods," said Paul Fain, spokesman for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But Mr. Dricks said that happened years ago at the Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, Conn., and unlike the Wisconsin gauge, the fuel rod was never found. "We think it's been disposed of, buried in a low-level nuclear waste site," he said yesterday in an interview.

Mr. Fain said he's certain the amount temporarily lost by Stora Enso North America was small in comparison. "Still, it's a good thing the NRC is taking it seriously," he said in an interview yesterday.

-------- britain

Beyond the Limits

From: George Farebrother <geowcpuk@gn.apc.org>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 12:15:02 +0100

I'm attaching a short info sheet, "Beyond the limits" which responds to the the UK Minister of Defence's recent evidence to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. This indicates that the UK might consider using nuclear weapons if British forces were attacked by Weapons of Mass Destruction in the field by, for example, Iraq. There has been much comment on this but what needs stressing is that such nuclear use could not possibly comply with with the World Court's Advisory Opinion on nuclear weapons.

World Court Project UK has already sent this information to constituents whose MPs are on the Select Committee. However, if you are in the UK you could help spread the net by printing and sending the sheet to your own MP with a covering note asking for comment. If you get any reply I would be very interested in seeing a copy,

Best Wishes
George Farebrother -->

Beyond the Limits:
March 2002

On Wednesday 20 March 2002 Geoff Hoon, Secretary of State for Defence, appeared as a witness before the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. The subject was missile defence but the evidence contains disturbing material on Britain's nuclear deterrence posture.

The officially minuted proceedings make it clear that the UK is prepared to use nuclear weapons against "rogue" states such as Iraq if they ever use weapons of mass destruction - biological, or chemical - (WMD), not against the British homeland, but on our troops in the field.

The crucial disclosures start in para 234 with a discussion about UK general deterrence in relation to a attack on the mainland. However, para 236 moves on to a specific question from Jim Knight MP: "Do you think such a state ["a state of concern"] would be deterred by our deterrent from using weapons of mass destruction against our forces in the field?"

Mr Hoon's answer is " ... the United Kingdom possesses nuclear weapons and has the willingness and ability to use them in appropriate circumstances". In para 237 he says that " ... in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons ... ". The context makes it quite clear that Mr Hoon is referring to a nuclear response by the UK to a WMD attack to British troops in the field.

On 8 July 1996 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) confirmed that to threaten, let alone use, nuclear weapons would be generally contrary to International Humanitarian Law. The judges were unable to pronounce on whether they could be lawful "in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake". Even then, any such threat or use should never violate the law.

A typical letter from the Ministry of Defence to the World Court Project UK dated 15 December 1999 states that "the United Kingdom would only consider using nuclear weapons in self-defence and in extreme circumstances, and subject to the rules of international law, and humanitarian law, applicable in armed conflict". This reflects faithfully the language of the ICJ. Many other letters and statements in Parliament are couched in similar terms. Mr Hoon's evidence to the Select Committee flies directly in the face of such undertakings. A chemical or biological attack in the field could, by no stretch of the imagination, qualify as a threat to the survival of the British state.

Whether such a response could ever be "subject to the rules of international law, and humanitarian law, applicable in armed conflict" is also at issue in Mr Hoon's evidence. He says: "we cannot rule out the possibility that such states [Iraq for example] would be willing to sacrifice their own people in order to make that kind of gesture [willingness to use WMD]". If "such states" were to "sacrifice their own people", the agents of the sacrifice would be nuclear warheads launched by British Trident submarines. Saddam Hussein might be complicit in the sacrifice of innocent civilians; but it would be we who would be inflicting the sacrifice directly. This would almost certainly violate the need for the discriminate use of weapons demanded by International Humanitarian Law.

At the end of the proceedings on 20 March the Chairman, Mr Bruce George, told Mr Hoon that "we will ask you exactly the same questions again in due course". When the Committee next meets the Minister it should also ask him how a nuclear response by the UK in Iraq:

·could possibly be proportionate and discriminate,

·qualify as defending "the very survival" of the British state,

·omply with the negative security assurances the UK has given all non-nuclear states,

·could avoid constituting a war crime.

WORLD COURT PROJECT UK
The Public Conscience in Action
Secretary: George Farebrother, 67, Summerheath Rd, Hailsham, Sussex, UK BN27 3DR
Phone & Fax +44 (0)1323 844 269 ,
E Mail: geowcpuk@gn.apc.org, Web http://www.gn.apc.org/wcp


-------- depleted uranium

No DU found from 1988 A-10 crash in Remscheid

From: uranium@t-online.de

No DU was found in soil samples collected at the site in Remscheid, Germany, where an U.S. A-10 aircraft crashed in 1988.

(Remscheider General-Anzeiger, April 11, 2002)

--

From: uranium@t-online.de

At 11:56 11.04.2002 -0700, Piotr Bein wrote: >14 years after the fact?

- first tests had been done in 1989, but, after the DU hysteria in January 2001, it was felt that these tests had been insufficient, and the NRW State government ordered a new study.

>Was the soil excavated or covered in the meantime?

- Together with the local group of concerned citizens ("Buergerinitiative Absturz"), nine sample locations were selected that had not been changed since the accident, and where no fertilizer had been used.

>Did an independent unit do the test?

- The tests were done at two laboratories; the study was coordinated by Oeko-Institut <http://www.oeko.de> - a consulting organization that has evolved from the anti-nuclear movement.

>With what method?

- not mentioned in the press articles. Oeko-Institut can be reached at info@oeko.de

P.D.

--

From: "Piotr Bein" <piotr.bein@imag.net>

RE: [du-list] No DU found from 1988 A-10 crash in Remscheid

1. Are you sure about your use of "hysteria"? The word means exagerated expression of ungrounded concern. In late 2000 to spring 2001, it was definitely not hysteria, but public uproar about a drastic increase in radiation-like symptoms among soldiers and policemen who served in Bosnia and Kosovo since 1994, where US/NATO used DU weapons and contaminated the environment for everyone, not just European servicemen and women.

2. Could you please find out what method was used by the two German labs and who is behind Oeko-Institut consultant. Orgs often change over the years. If the consultant was hired by the gov't, I would be suspicious. The governments have covered up DU and other nuclear problems in the past, so why would this case be an exception? Also, it could be that the researchers found one thing, but the report was phrased differently. It happens all the time, not only in Germany.

3. Could you please obtain the full report from the institute, study it, compare with press releases and report back to du-list?

4. Where could I find more about your org?

Piotr Bein

-------- france

French union plans nuclear power cuts on April 16

REUTERS FRANCE:
April 11, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15416/newsDate/11-Apr-2002/story.htm

PARIS - French union leaders are planning to reduce output at all of Electricite de France's nuclear power plants on April 16 in a one-day strike to protest against worsening work conditions, a union official said yesterday.

The strike by workers in the nuclear industry is planned to coincide with the first round of presidential elections on April 21, and will include a demonstration of about 3,000 workers outside the National Assembly in Paris, the official said.

"The objective is to have a reduction (in production) at all EdF's nuclear plants," said an official from the CGT union, adding that the exact cuts will be only known on the day of the strike itself.

State-owned EdF, which operates all of France's nuclear plants, declined to comment on the potential impact of the strike on its 62,360 megawatts of nuclear power output.

It has during past industrial actions given assurances that the supply of electricity will not be disrupted.

The union, which last organised a strike a month ago to protest energy deregulation, fears that several thousand jobs in the nuclear industry could be threatened by cost-cutting as the electricity market opens up.

The action will also include workers from nuclear research institute CEA and state-owned Areva and Cogema, which are involved in the nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining, conversion and enrichment to spent fuel reprocessing and recycling.

France's dependence on nuclear reactors for nearly 80-percent of its electricity output has developed into a political issue ahead of the presidential elections.

Last month, the Greens party threatened not to back Socialist presidential candidate and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin if he did not agree to phase out nuclear power.

"The nuclear industry is at the heart of the pre-election debates. We consider the stakes of this industry merits more than just political discussions or vote-catching deals," the union said in a statement.

"The condition of operating and of maintenance of installation have deteriorated seriously, so much so that we doubt that the safety and the security can be guaranteed today," the CGT said.

-------- russia

US, Russia Show Goodwill but No Arms Breakthrough

April 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-russia-usa-powell.html

MADRID - Secretary of State Colin Powell took a break from Middle East diplomacy on Thursday to meet Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov, but no breakthrough emerged on finalizing a document to cut nuclear arsenals.

The United States and Russia are working on an agreement to reduce the world's two largest nuclear stockpiles by about a third in time for it to be signed by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the May 23-26 summit.

Powell and Ivanov reported no progress on thorny issues such as how to count the number of warheads and what will be done with them once they are removed from their missiles.

Meeting in Madrid just before Powell left for the Middle East, Powell and Ivanov touched on a range of bilateral issues including an agreement to give Russia a meaningful role in NATO and a trade dispute currently blocking U.S. chicken exports to Russia.

But Powell told a news conference there were ``no discussions'' on a brewing espionage scandal in which Russia's security police said they uncovered a U.S. spy ring and accused the Americans of drugging a scientist to steal military secrets.

The arms control talks centered on preparing a legally binding document to cut U.S. and Russian arsenals by about a third from current levels of between 6,000 and 7,000, but how to count the number of warheads remained an issue.

Powell said he was ``pleased with the progress that the two sets of negotiators are making'' and that they would meet again next week in Moscow and could move forward at a Washington meeting with Ivanov set for May 3.

``Both sides want the document to be signed during the visit of President Bush in Moscow. At the same time quite serious work is ahead of us,'' Ivanov told the news conference in Madrid.

``On many issues we moved our positions closer but there are a number of open issues. One of those is the procedure of counting warheads and delivery means,'' Ivanov said.

COUNTING WARHEADS

The Russian side objects to a U.S. proposal which instead of counting the potential number of warheads on a launch platform as the number of arms left, the platform is counted as one unless the weapons are actually installed on it.

Though Putin had indicated he would go to about the same level as the United States, Moscow has not yet specified its position since Washington said it would keep a number of decommissioned arms in storage.

``There are nuances in the approach of the U.S. and the Russian side and we will continue our discussions on this issue. The Russian side wants the cuts to be real,'' Ivanov said.

The two sides are also working on an agreement to create a NATO-Russian council, which has been more enthusiastically backed the European NATO allies than by Washington and is testing the limits of U.S.-Russian cooperation since the good will that followed the September 11 attacks.

``We noted that a great deal of progress had been made toward a NATO-Russia council and we expect to see more progress between now and the next time we get together,'' Powell said.

PLAYING CHICKEN WITH TRADE

The United States had hoped a ban on U.S. chicken imports would be lifted before Powell met Ivanov but Russia extended it for two more days on Wednesday, saying it needed more time to study evidence that Washington said proved its products were safe.

Ivanov said he hoped the poultry dispute would be solved ''in the nearest future'' but that it depended on the ongoing technical analysis.

Russia was by far the largest importer of American poultry before it imposed the ban last month. The dispute coincides with Russian anger at U.S. plans to impose tariffs on steel imports, but neither side has publicly linked the two issues.

-----

BRITISH NUCLEAR WASTE TO BE SENT TO RUSSIA

From: "Vladimir Slivyak" <ecodefense@online.ru>
PRESS-RELEASE Moscow,
April 11, 2002
Contact: 2784642, 7766281, 7766546 -
Vladimir Slivyak or Alisa Nikulina, Ecodefense

Afternoon of April 10, Head of Russian ministry of atomic power Alexander Rumyantsev met environmental activists for the first time since he was appointed as a minister in 2001. At the meeting, minister said British nuclear industry wants to dump its waste on Russia

Yesterday' late afternoon, head of Russian ministry of atomic power (Minatom) was answering the questions of 7 leading environmentalists opposing nuclear power. Activists were mostly concerned about the plan to import high-level radioactive waste (or spent nuclear fuel) to Russia. Plan was sponsored by Minatom and approved by both Russian parliament and president in 2001. According to Alexander Rumyantsev, next year a contract to import spent nuclear fuel from British research reactors will be signed. Minister refused to say how much nuclear fuel and at what price will be imported. Speaking on prospective over the import of spent fuel from foreign civil reactors Rumyantsev said he sees "no opportunities for any contracts to be signed in the next few years".

"Describing publicly the plan to import nuclear waste, Minatom repeatedly insisted that there is the spent fuel reprocessing' market across the world where Britain and France are main competitors to Russia. Now it appears that British industry wants to dump its nuclear waste in Russia because reprocessing is no more economically profitable", said Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman for Russian environmental group Ecodefense, who participated in the meeting with Rumyantsev yesterday. "Import of nuclear waste is crime against the environment and future generations. Britain should not dump its radioactive garbage on Russia!"

Minister said the US control over 80% of the world' spent nuclear fuel and his ministry works to get American permission for importing this fuel. Alexander Rumyantsev said Ministry' representatives repeatedly asked USA after the accident of September 11 to offer Minatom possibility for earning enough funds to improve physical protection of nuclear facilities in Russia. Such funds could be obtained through nuclear waste import, minister said.

Alexandr Rumyantsev also commented on the issue of possible import of the low-level radioactive waste to Russia, also on disposal of Asian radioactive waste in Russian Far East. "There is great economic profit Russia may get [from low-level waste import], but I can't call for this because Russian law prohibit such import", minister said. On March 27, 2002, Ecodefense made public the documents confirming that Russian nuclear industry and politicians involved in secret deal with Taiwan, aimed at importing radioactive waste and dumping it on Simushir island (Russian Sakhalin/Far East). Several media reports in Russia pointed out at minister Rumyantsev as main shadow-supporter of the Simushir project. Alexander Rumyantsev refused to comment on whether or not his ministry would lobby to change Russian legislation in order to allow the import of low-level radioactive waste from Asia.

ATTENTION OF JOUNRNALISTS: YOU CAN INTERVIEW TWO ACTIVISTS OF ECODEFENSE WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE MEETING WITH MINISTER RUMYANTSEV ON APR. 10, 2002. FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL 2784642, 7766546, 7766281 or e-mail: ecodefense@online.ru

-------- terrorism

Al Qaeda sought nuclear scientists

April 11, 2002
By Julian West
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020411-76849160.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan - Two Afghan nuclear scientists, in the strongest indication yet that al Qaeda was trying to construct a nuclear bomb, have revealed how the terrorist group attempted to recruit them.

The scientists disclosed how they had risked their lives by hiding radioactive materials, sufficient to make dozens of "dirty bombs," in the ruins of the old Aliabad mental hospital in Kabul and in the grimy basement of Kabul University's nuclear physics department.

Last week, a team of specially trained British soldiers equipped with state-of-the-art instruments were led to the caches by the two nuclear physicists.

What they found astounded them.

There was a broken radiotherapy machine, containing enough cobalt 60 to kill a man instantly, in the lead-lined cancer treatment room of the hospital.

In the basement of Kabul University, there were containers of solid and liquid radioactive material, some broken or with the lids off; chemical warfare agents; and instruments emitting radiation.

"We've been finding stuff that's far more potent and dangerous than even 'dirty bombs,' which are made of nuclear waste," said Capt. James Cameron, who heads an eight-member team from the Joint Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Regiment, based in Bury Saint Edmunds, England, which also monitors the activities of Iraq's Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

The team is in Kabul to protect the international peacekeeping force.

Capt. Cameron said much of the material was left over from the Soviets, "who used far higher doses of radiation than we would." Some of the containers were damaged by the Afghan mujahideen in the early 1990s, he said.

"But al Qaeda and the Taliban never knew about it. The atomic scientists tore up their papers and never said a word," Capt. Cameron said.

Last week, the two Afghan scientists, Mohammed Jan Naziri, a professor of applied nuclear physics, and Jora Mohammed Korbani, a nuclear physics professor, revealed how they had concealed their knowledge from the Taliban.

They said that in 1996, when the Taliban militia first entered Kabul, they and some other colleagues on the faculty had gathered all the radioactive sources and instruments they could find from the university's laboratories and stored them in the nuclear science faculty's basement.

Because they had no radiometers and no protective clothing, the scientists moved the items as carefully as they could, storing them between sheets of lead. They then tore up their research documents and papers on atomic physics.

"We didn't really know how radioactive some of the sources were," Mr. Naziri said. "We just tried to protect them."

Initially, the Taliban came to the university and simply registered the names of all the professors in the nuclear physics department.

"They didn't understand anything about physics or what we were doing, but we knew they were looking for physics and chemistry experts," Mr. Korbani said.

Then, one day a man from Kandahar, the Taliban's heartland and Osama bin Laden's main base, came to talk to the scientists at the faculty.

Mr. Naziri said he refused to talk to the man, whom he described as "an Arab who spoke Pashtu and Farsi poorly."

He said he asked the man for official letters of request from the Foreign Ministry or the university and told him he couldn't do anything without the Atomic Energy Authority's permission.

"We never saw him again," Mr. Naziri said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Korbani, who lost his job a year after the Taliban took Kabul, was approached by a mysterious aid agency called the "Chand Groupi," or "Multi Group," which operated out of a house in Kabul's Wazir Akbar Khan district, where bin Laden kept several safe houses and where many Arab al Qaeda fighters lived.

The agency operated separately but was linked to the Ummah Tameer-e-Nau charity, run by the renegade Pakistani nuclear scientist Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmoud, who the CIA has called "bin Laden's nuclear secretary." Mr. Mahmoud is currently under house arrest in Pakistan.

Although evidence found by the Sunday Telegraph last November - and more recently, the joint team headed by Capt. Cameron - in Mr. Mahmoud's house revealed that he was engaged in an experiment to float a helium balloon filled with anthrax over the United States, the Multi Group was clearly attempting to construct a nuclear bomb.

"They said to me, 'We know you're working for the faculty of nuclear science, and we need you,'" Mr. Korbani said. "They offered me a lot of money and said that they wanted me to find 100 other nuclear scientists and technicians and come to Karachi."

Mr. Korbani was then asked to write a paper on atomic energy.

"They told me, 'Pakistan has a very powerful atomic bomb, and we are very keen on bringing such a power to Afghanistan,'" he said. The men told him that people in Pakistan's tribal areas would pay for the program. "They kept calling me, but I never returned [the calls]. I knew it was too dangerous."

Capt. Cameron said there was little doubt that al Qaeda and the Taliban were attempting to make chemical weapons. If not for the Kabul University scientists, al Qaeda might have successfully constructed several "dirty bombs," he said.

Unlike a conventional nuclear bomb, in which atoms are split to produce a massive explosion, a dirty bomb is simply a conventional bomb wrapped in radioactive material.

A dirty bomb is much easier to produce because it requires only a conventional explosive plus some radioactive waste, such as spent fuel from a nuclear power plant or radioactive material used in medicine.

"The Taliban would have given their eyeteeth for the stuff these men were hiding, and if they'd found it, I hate to think what they'd have done," Capt. Cameron said.

-------- treaties

Powell Reports Progress in Arms Talks With Russia

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 11, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31677-2002Apr11?language=printer

MADRID, April 11 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his Russian counterpart Igor S. Ivanov reported progress today in talks over a new arms agreement cutting nuclear stockpiles, but crucial differences remained over how these reductions would be counted.

With both sides hoping to seal a deal when President Bush visits Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in late May, arms experts are now scheduled to continue negotiations in Russia in two weeks followed by another round of talks between Powell and Ivanov in Washington early next month.

Although Powell's attention in recent days has been focused primarily on resolving the latest Middle East crisis, he stopped in Madrid for discussions with Ivanov planned before the recent surge in violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

These talks centered on the preparation of two documents that Bush and Putin will take up at their summit, scheduled to begin May 23. One is a legally binding agreement outlining major reductions in nuclear warheads by 2012 and the other is a broader understanding about strategic relations between the countries, addressing offensive and defensive weapons systems and the spread of nuclear weapons.

"There are very serious rapprochement of positions in both these documents, although certain differences still remain," Ivanov said during a press conference with Powell.

Both sides have already announced a willingness to reduce their nuclear stockpiles by about two-thirds from current levels of 6,000 warheads each. Russia has said it is prepared to go down to as few as 1,500 warheads while the Bush administration has set a range of 1,700 to 2,200 for the American stockpile.

A main sticking point remains how to tally warheads. The Bush administration wants to count warheads that are "operationally deployed," those that actually remain in service on missiles and bombers. But Russian officials have been more cautious about moving away from rules embodied in previous arms control agreements, which limited the number of warheads that each side can launch rather than the warheads themselves, according to Russian and American officials. Under previous accords, for instance, a missile capable of carrying five warheads would be counted as five warheads even if only one was actually deployed.

Moreover, Russia has urged that warheads taken out of operation be destroyed while the United States wants to be able to keep them in storage.

"As for the issues of reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons and delivery means, it is one of the most complex issues under discussion now," Ivanov said. "There are some nuances in approaches on the U.S. and Russian part. The Russian side stands for making the reductions real and not virtual."

A senior State Department official said the method favored by the United States moves beyond the Cold War approach based on mistrust and is more appropriate for the new era of constructive relations between the countries.

Nor have the two sides agreed on whether the reductions would be enshrined in a traditional arms control treaty or some other type of agreement. U.S. officials have balked at the idea of a full-blown treaty, which would require Senate ratification. Powell has said he envisions an agreement of about six pages, which might need only a congressional resolution of support.

Administration officials had not expected a major breakthrough during the Madrid talks but said they were able to advance the negotiations.

"We are pleased with the progress our negotiators are making," Powell said.

Negotiators are already working from a common draft agreement with disagreements in brackets. Powell presented the Russians with a revised proposal to "cement reductions" while Ivanov offered new language on how the sides would share information about their weapons systems, according to a senior State Department official.

"There are still some big issues, tough issues to be dealt with, but we're still working on it," the senior official said.

Undersecretary of State John Bolton is scheduled to pursue these issues further when he travels to Moscow in two weeks for talks with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi Mamedov.

At the same time, negotiators are trying to craft a new understanding about strategic relations that could allow Washington and Moscow to cooperate in the development of missile defense systems, according to U.S. officials. Over Russian objections, Bush announced late last year that the United States would withdraw in June from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which barred the development of defenses to shield against long-range missiles. American officials have suggested collaborating with Russia in research and development of missile defense systems, exchanging data and sharing information about threats posed by other countries and militant groups. This could occur either in direct contacts between the United States and Russia or in the context of Russia's improving ties with NATO, officials said.

After their talks today, Powell and Ivanov were also upbeat about the prospects for an agreement setting up a new council to include members of NATO and Russia. The two senior diplomats said this could be achieved before the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Iceland next month.

-------- treaties

NPT- NGO presentations April 10

Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 18:15:36 -0700
From: "Women's International League for Peace and Freedom" <wilpfun@igc.org>

Yesterday 14 NGOs representating 10 different countries gave presentations to the NPT in the morning session of the plenary. NGOs welcomed this chance and urged consideration of how these exchanges could be further developed for future PrepComs and Review conferences. 12 themes were addressed, prefaced by a presentation on the "Political Overview" and concluded with a presentation on NGO recommendations to the 2002 NPT PrepCom.

To view the texts of the NGO presentations, please see: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/npt/ngostate2002.html

Best wishes,
Emily Schroeder

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Going Backwards: Nuclear-Tipped Interceptors Studied
Rumsfeld Revives Rejected Missile Defense Concept

by Bradley Graham
Thursday, April 11, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0411-01.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28866-2002Apr10?language=printer

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has opened the door to the possible use of nuclear-tipped interceptors in a national missile defense system, reviving an idea that U.S. authorities rejected nearly three decades ago as technically problematic and politically unacceptable. William Schneider Jr., chairman of the Defense Science Board, said yesterday that he had received encouragement from Rumsfeld to begin exploring the idea as part of an upcoming study of alternative approaches to intercepting enemy missiles.

"We've talked about it as something that he's interested in looking at," Schneider said in an interview.

The Pentagon experimented with nuclear-armed interceptors in the 1950s and 1960s and, for a short time in the mid-1970s, deployed an anti-missile system that relied on them. But the notion of nuclear explosions going off high overhead to block incoming missiles proved unsettling for many people. And the prospect that ionized clouds and electromagnetic shock waves associated with the explosions could end up blinding radar on the ground and scrambling electronic equipment eventually helped kill the plan.

Since then, defense officials have focused on developing interceptors to destroy targets without the need for explosives, relying instead on the force of direct impact, a concept known as "hit to kill."

Driving the new interest in arming interceptors with nuclear devices is the problem of dealing with decoys and other measures that an enemy might use to confuse an interceptor, Schneider said.

The hit-to-kill approach depends on interceptors picking out the real enemy targets and homing in on them. By contrast, nuclear-armed interceptors need not distinguish actual targets from clusters of decoys but could rely on explosive power or radiation to wipe out everything in the vicinity.

One other arguable advantage of nuclear interceptors, Schneider suggested, is their potential for ensuring destruction of missile-borne biological warfare agents such as anthrax.

President Bush has made clear his interest in pursuing technological solutions to missile defense, removing long-standing constraints by deciding last December to withdraw the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow.

The Pentagon has embarked on experimental anti-missile programs, including land- and sea-based interceptors as well as airborne lasers and space-based weapons, with the hope of having at least a rudimentary capability in place by fall 2004. But until now, defense officials had shied away from the nuclear option.

An extensive Pentagon review of missile defense alternatives undertaken in the first months of the Bush administration raised the possibility of nuclear-tipped interceptors, according to two officials familiar with the review. But the idea failed to make the list of programs worth funding.

Its return comes in the context of other recent signs of the administration's general readiness to consider broader uses of nuclear weapons. A Pentagon review of U.S. nuclear policy, concluded late last year, put new emphasis on possible nuclear strikes against Third World adversaries and backed development of low-yield nuclear bombs to hit hardened or deeply buried targets.

Russia, which built a missile defense system around Moscow in the 1960s that survives to this day, relied from the start on nuclear-armed interceptors. Although U.S. defense experts regard the Russian system as anachronistic, Russian military officials worry that the United States will eventually adopt the nuclear approach, according to Pavel Podvig, editor of an authoritative book about Russian strategic nuclear forces published last year by the Center for Arms Control Studies in Moscow.

"They believe strongly that you cannot get an effective missile defense system using hit-to-kill," Podvig said.

The Defense Science Board, set up in the 1950s, is a senior advisory body that reports to the secretary of defense on technological, operational and managerial matters. One of its task forces already is looking at some aspects of missile defense, including command and control systems, international cooperation and countermeasures such as decoys. Schneider said he plans to initiate the review of nuclear interceptors and other alternatives to hit-to-kill after the task force completes its study this summer.

"The issue hasn't been looked at for about 30 years," said Schneider, a consultant and undersecretary of state for security assistance under President Ronald Reagan. "The last test involved a four-megaton device on a Spartan interceptor in 1971."

Richard L. Garwin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and prominent missile defense skeptic, said nuclear interceptors still pose several significant technical problems.

"When you actually look at the question, you find that it takes a very large warhead -- more than a megaton -- to destroy anthrax spores in bomblets that may be spread over a distance of five kilometers or more," he said.

"Worse, there are hundreds of civilian satellites as well as many U.S. military satellites vital to our national security that would be imperiled by nuclear explosions. And there are electromagnetic pulse vulnerabilities in an advanced society such as ours that would occur to any point within line-of-sight of the nuclear explosions."

---

Re: RUMSFELD CONSIDERS NUCLEAR-TIPPED STAR WARS INTERCEPTORS

From: Mark Gubrud <mgubrud@squid.umd.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002

We have known all along that if the US were serious about needing some kind of emergency backstop against one or a few missiles that might be launched either accidentally (not really a plausible contingency), or by a terrorist team (also not very plausible), by the mythical "mad dictator having a bad hair day" (no comment), or, more realistically, by a country under attack by the US (their missiles would be a prime target in the first phase of the US attack, but they might get away before they could be destroyed on the ground), then a logical choice would be interceptors armed with multimegaton nuclear warheads. This might damage a lot of satellites and electronics on the ground, but it would still be better than losing San Francisco.

The interceptor could conceivably be a modified ICBM (and one may wonder whether the US does not already covertly maintain such a minimal capability - it would probably be kept a very tight secret, both to avoid ABM Treaty issues and to maximize its chances of effectiveness), or a next-generation ICBM could be designed for several roles.

A midcourse defense based on nuclear interceptors, plus a boost-phase defense based on high-acceleration rockets launched from close to the launch point of the attacking missile(s), plus a preemptive strike to most likely destroy the missile(s) on the ground, would give the US a potent antimissile capability. I think we can say that any other approach is just not militarily serious.

I'm not saying this would be a good idea; in fact, it is aterrible idea, but only because it would be enormously provocative and destabilizing. The standard "It-won't-work (and it costs too much)" line of criticism won't work against such a proposal. This means trouble, folks.

It is trouble not only because it is the most difficult type of proposal to deflate on technical grounds, but also because, by the same token, it is the type of proposal that Russia, China, and any other nuclear power that has reasons not to trust us cannot dismiss with a shrug - "Let the Americans pursue their folly" - and at most a shudder over the prospect of space weaponization. Unlike the provably ineffective hit-to-kill midcourse interceptor system favored under Clinton, or the obviously weak, clumsy and vulnerable Space-Based Laser scheme, a system like this one begins to pose a halfway credible challenge to China, if coupled with a willingness to execute a nuclear or PGM first-strike on their land-based missiles; if sufficiently expanded and coupled with a credible antisubmarine capability, it could credibly threaten Russia, and even if the system is kept limited, its development and refinement and the possibility of its rapid expansion poses a strategic threat the Russians could not dismiss or ignore. Thus it must provoke the most dangerous kinds of countermoves, leading to an accelerating arms race.

Mark A. Gubrud

--------
"Planning to be Surprised":
The US Nuclear Posture Review and its Implications for Arms Control

BASIC Paper #39,
April 2002
By Mark Bromley <mbromley@basicint.org>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002

The US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the first of its kind since 1994, was released in January 2002. It capped a year of discussion and debate within the Bush administration about the future size and role of the US nuclear arsenal. In advance of its release many questioned the extent to which September 11th and the ongoing war on terrorism would affect military thinking. In particular, would the need to maintain good relations with Russia and other allies lead to a less aggressive policy on controversial issues like arms control, missile defence and nuclear testing? Also, would the altered perception of the threats faced by the United States lead Washington to lessen its reliance on nuclear weapons?

The Review confirmed many of the worst fears of those in the arms control community. Its findings indicated that the United States is determined to keep nuclear weapons at the heart of its military planning indefinitely. In addition, it demonstrated more clearly than ever that the United States is turning its back on binding arms control agreements as a means of promoting non-proliferation and arms control. Instead, the Review called for a flexible force posture, able to deter and respond to any and all emerging threats. This radical new approach by Washington poses a serious challenge to current forms of multilateral arms control supported by many US allies.

A new triad

Whilst the NPR remains classified, its key components became apparent in January during a Pentagon press briefing with J.D. Crouch, assistant secretary of defence for international security policy, and Senate hearings with other key officials. This outline was further augmented in early March, when details of the NPR were leaked to both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. The Review's central proposal entails a paradigmatic shift in US strategic thinking. Whereas current US strategic forces are based almost exclusively around the nuclear triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs ), bombers and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), the NPR envisions a new triad consisting of nuclear and non-nuclear forces, defensive forces and the "responsive infrastructure".

This shift in strategic planning is justified on the grounds that the current triad is geared towards the Cold War deterrence relationship with Russia, and ill-suited to the kind of threats the United States now faces, and may face in the future. Hence, the United States should no longer structure its nuclear arsenal to counter the Russian threat. Instead, the United States should develop a "capabilities-based approach" by assessing what technologies it needs to counter current and emerging threats, and ensure it is able to deploy those technologies.[1] As Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defence for policy, said in Congressional testimony on the NPR, the United States must "plan to be surprised".[2]

However, in pursuing this new level of flexibility the United States risks doing irrevocable damage to existing arms control and non-proliferation efforts. In order to ensure the ability to develop and deploy the forces it feels it may need, the Bush administration is seeking to abandon all restraints on US nuclear planning. In addition, by dramatically extending the range of situations in which the United States would contemplate nuclear use, Washington is lowering the threshold at which these weapons could be used. Each part of the new triad, as discussed below, has huge implications for US nuclear policy and for international security.

Upcoming cuts

Remaining as part of the US triad, nuclear weapons still form the key component of US deterrence policy as reflected in the NPR. However, the Review reflects new thinking about the size of the arsenal and the usability of nuclear weapons to counter future threats.

The Review concluded that the United States will reduce its nuclear arsenal to 3,800 operationally deployed warheads by 2007, and 1,700-2,200 warheads by 2012. Short-term reductions will include retirement of 50 MX (Peacekeeper) missiles, which each carry 10 warheads; shifting four Trident submarines, which each carry 96 warheads, from strategic to conventional use; and promising that the B-1 bomber will not be reinstated in a nuclear role.

From a high point of 15,000 deployed strategic warheads in 1987, the United States has enhanced world security by pledging to make drastic cuts to its arsenal. In addition, all of the short-term reductions - those designed to cut the arsenal to 3,800 warheads by 2007 - were planned under the terms of the START II Treaty, which is almost certainly dead under the weight of enormous pressures added to the Treaty by US and Russian legislatures. However, proposed reductions to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads by 2012 represent a slower pace of reduction than envisioned by the Clinton administration, which agreed with Moscow in 1997 to cut Russian and US nuclear arsenals to between 2,000 and 2,500 warheads by 2007.[3]

Trust but don't verify

While the pace of the arms reductions is open to criticism, a far larger question mark hangs over the manner in which they are to be carried out. The NPR commits the United States to maintain a "responsive infrastructure". This component of the US arsenal, also known as the hedge, is designed to allow the reversal of arsenal reductions since they lie outside the scope of all arms control treaties to date. According to the NPR, the responsive infrastructure "retains the option for the leadership to increase the number of operationally deployed forces in proportion to the severity of an evolving crisis."[4]

The US nuclear hedge was devised in the 1980s and formally approved in the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review. Designed to act as a guarantee against possible technical problems with the deployed forces or a resurgent threat from Russia, it currently consists of around 2,500 nuclear warheads spread across the inactive and active stockpile. The US hedge is comprised primarily of the warheads that were slated for retirement under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty and the 1991 START I accord, both of which required the destruction of delivery vehicles but not warheads. [5]

The NPR divides the strategic nuclear force into two new categories: the 1,700 to 2,200 warheads will comprise the "operationally deployed" force, and some of the remaining warheads will become part of the "responsive force". The hedge will be placed in storage, but will be maintained and ready to be uploaded onto bombs and ballistic missiles if Washington chooses to increase its arsenal over a period of weeks, months or years (depending on the system). In March defence officials indicated the 'responsive force' would include 2,400 warheads.[6] Combined with non-strategic warheads and inactive warheads, by 2012 the United States will be able to deploy not 1,700 to 2,200 warheads, but closer to 10,000 warheads.[7]

The Bush administration argues that by making the US nuclear force correspond directly with its actual nuclear deployments, it is employing "truth in advertising".[8] However, it also enables Washington to present its nuclear cuts as being far greater than they actually are and, most importantly, ensures that the Pentagon can reverse any reductions in the future.

PNIs, a mixed heritage

Maintaining the nuclear hedge exemplifies the Bush administration's opposition to formalising upcoming arms reductions in a legally binding, irreversible treaty with Russia, which would set the "permitted features" of the US nuclear arsenal.[9] The NPR instead advocates a process of reciprocal, unilateral arms reductions outside of a concrete treaty framework. This approach follows a precedent, which President Bush views as highly successful.

The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs) of 1991 were a series of parallel, unilateral actions by the United States and Russia to withdraw from foreign deployments and eliminate both ground-launched and ship-borne tactical nuclear weapons. While the PNIs represent an example of unilateral arms control achieving a critical goal simply and quickly, the subsequent failure to implement effective methods of verification has led to persistent doubts over Moscow's enforcement of the agreement. Current estimates of the Russian tactical warhead stockpile vary from 4,000 to 20,000, and some experts question whether even Russia itself has a reliable inventory.[10]

The dangers posed by a failure to agree a binding agreement with Russia are highlighted by the legacy of the PNIs. While serving a vital purpose at the time, the lack of effective verification measures and agreed arsenal limits in the PNIs has left the Russian tactical nuclear arsenal as one of the main proliferation concerns in the world today. Washington currently has the opportunity to bind Moscow into irreversible and verifiable reductions of its strategic arsenal. However, the Bush administration may pass up that opportunity because of a perceived need to maintain US force flexibility.

While the United States seems certain to maintain the nuclear hedge, Washington is currently sending out mixed signals over the kind of agreement it will conclude with Moscow. The Defence Department has broadly hinted that verified limits are not a topic for negotiation but in response to Russian protests the State Department has developed a more placatory line. In early February the secretary of state, Colin Powell, confirmed that the United States would work with Russia to codify proposed cuts in a "legally binding" agreement, though it remains unclear what form this might take.[11] This debate is unlikely to be resolved until Presidents Bush and Putin meet in May 2002.

Conventional weapons vs. new nukes

The NPR's new triad shows the United States shifting from a strategic force based almost entirely on nuclear weapons to one based on a mixture of nuclear and non-nuclear forces. The increased role for conventional weapons reflects an ongoing debate over the implications of the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) for US military planning. As the congressionally appointed National Defence Panel noted in 1997, "Advancing military technologies that merge the capabilities of information systems with precision-guided weaponry and real time targeting and other new weapons systems may provide a supplement or alternative to the nuclear arsenals of the Cold-War."[12]

The belief that conventional weapons can play a greater role in strategic planning is reflected in the findings of the NPR. The Review calls for the development of a "fast-response, precision-impact, conventional penetrator for hard and deeply buried targets" and also "the modification of a strategic ballistic missile system to enable the development of a non-nuclear payload."[13] The development of both systems indicates the extent to which the Pentagon wishes to develop new conventional systems to fulfil the kind of missions previously reserved for nuclear weapons.

However, the United States will continue to examine the possibility of developing new, low-yield, nuclear warhead for use against hardened and deeply buried targets in "states of concern". The NPR calls for a three-year study into developing a nuclear-tipped, earth-penetrating weapon and also establishes "advanced warhead concept teams" at the nation's three nuclear weapons laboratories to work on new warheads or warhead modifications.[14] In particular, the review calls for research to begin on fitting an existing nuclear warhead into a new 5,000-pound "earth penetrating" munition.[15]

According to Congressional testimony, any new system is more likely to be a modification of an existing warhead than a completely new weapon. However, the NPR also requests that the Department of Energy accelerate the amount of time required to prepare a nuclear site from its current two to three year period to "something substantially better".[16] Along with endangering the existing testing moratorium on nuclear testing that President George Bush Senior instigated in 1992 and threatening the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), increasing test site readiness gives a further boost to those who support the development of entirely new nuclear weapons designs including a low-yield warhead.

A contradiction in terms?

The NPR's attempt to both increase and decrease the role of nuclear weapons in US military planning needs to be viewed in light of the overriding aim of the NPR: to give the United States maximum flexibility in developing and deploying strategic systems. Giving conventional weapons an increased role in strategic missions widens the range of options available to military planners when seeking to either deter or target adversaries. Meanwhile, developing new low-yield weapons gives the United States another means of tackling hardened and deeply buried targets.

However, insisting on this level of flexibility will come at a price. Development of new nuclear weapons would further erode the taboo against nuclear use, which has developed since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In addition, there are strong doubts that a low-yield nuclear strike could be as "surgical" as some argue. A report by the Federation of American Scientists concluded that a warhead with a yield of just one percent of the 15 kiloton Hiroshima weapon would blow out "a massive crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with an especially intense and deadly fallout."[17]

In addition, the development of more usable warheads would serve to further highlight the question of whether or not the United States would use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state. Washington first issued so-called "negative security assurances" to this effect in 1978 and they have been restated over the last 24 years; it is believed that they were crucial to achieving the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995. Nonetheless, in private many policy makers in Washington view nuclear deterrence as a useful tool against biological and chemical attack, which can complicate the strategic calculations of aggressors. For example, in 1997 a presidential decision directive (PDD-60) on nuclear policy reportedly allowed for the use of nuclear weapons either to deter or respond to chemical and biological weapons.[18]

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has indicated that the Bush administration will be maintaining the policy of deliberate ambiguity pursued by its predecessors. He stated that the United States would not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state unless the state attacked the United States or its allies in conjunction with a nuclear state but added that the United States reserved the right to any kind of military response if it or its allies come under attack by chemical and biological weapons.[19] This debate took a worrying twist when the leaked version of the NPR revealed that the US will draw up contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria on the grounds that "all have long-standing hostility towards the United States and its security partners. All sponsor or harbour terrorists, and have active WMD and missile programs."[20]

While it is welcome move by the Bush administration to restate previous negative security assurances, developing new, more usable nuclear weapons and actively talking up the possibility of using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states will continue to raise questions about US policy.

Missile defence and "first strike"

In the new triad outlined by the NPR, the third leg is made up by missile defences. The Review asserts that by mixing nuclear forces, non-nuclear forces and missile defences and ensuring that it has the capability to rebuild and extend its forces, the United States can develop a flexible strategic posture with which it can deal with the threats it will face in the modern world.

Part of the rationale behind developing this new, more flexible nuclear posture can be found in the work of Keith Payne, director of the National Institute for Public Policy, which is believed to have heavily influenced the NPR. Payne argues that the Cold War strategic framework that equates "a rational opponent and a lethal U.S. threat with the certainty of deterrence effectiveness" is not capable of dealing with current security concerns. He also argues that with the number of variables and unknowns so greatly increased, "old fashioned nuclear deterrence", as practiced with Moscow, will likely fail in the event of a dispute with China over Taiwan or an ICBM-armed North Korea. [21] Finally, he concludes that if the United States is to avoid being deterred from projecting its conventional forces into areas of strategic importance it will need a functioning missile defence system coupled with an array of nuclear and non-nuclear strategic weapons.

However, what US force planners may view as an attempt to "strengthen" deterrence, China and others may see as the development of a "first strike" potential. Deployment of missile defences combined with a mixture of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons would greatly increase Washington's chances of a successful pre-emptive nuclear attack. The fact that Washington's actions may be viewed in this way, and the potentially destabilising effects this could have, must be taken into account.

The threat to arms control

In its attempt to develop a new way of dealing with the deterrence needs of the modern world, the United States is seeking greater flexibility in its offensive and defensive capabilities. In so doing Washington is reinventing arms control based on trust, not treaties; turning its back on the CTBT and irreversible arms reductions; and seeking to develop new, more usable nuclear weapons. All of these developments pose grave threats to the health of individual arms control agreements that have taken years to put in place. However, the greatest threat in terms of nuclear proliferation stems from the possible undermining of the NPT.

While the current situation regarding nuclear proliferation is far from perfect, it is worth remembering how much worse the situation would be without the NPT in place. In recent years this has been emphasised by the number of states who have abandoned their nuclear weapons programmes and joined the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states, including Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Kazakhstan, South Africa, and Ukraine. In addition, while many view the examples of North Korea and Iraq as indicative of the failings of the NPT, it was only through the norms and mechanisms laid down by the Treaty that their nuclear programmes were first discovered and then halted.

A recent report from the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) supports this assessment. It concludes that the collapse of the NPT would encourage "states to review their nuclear policies and to adopt more aggressive policies. In the long run, this strategic environment would likely foster vertical and horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons."[22] The dangers posed by a weakened NPT are real and universally recognised.

While it is likely that the Bush administration will seek to retain the NPT in some form, given that it maintains the existing nuclear status quo, a continued failure by the United States to fulfil its Treaty commitments will make this ever harder to achieve. The Bush administration's agenda as laid down by the NPR runs contrary to promises made by the United States under the NPT and poses a serious threat to the long term health of that agreement. A rejection of irreversible arms reductions, the development of new nuclear weapons, and targeting non-nuclear weapon states run contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the NPT.

Under article VI the United States is committed to engaging in "good faith" participation in international negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament. In addition, the Programme of Action agreed at the 2000 NPT Review Conference commits the United States to apply "the principle of irreversibility" to "nuclear disarmament, nuclear and other related arms control and reduction measures." Many will feel that retaining both the ability and the right to reverse proposed arsenal reductions runs contrary to these undertakings.

Under the terms of the Programme of Action the United States is also committed to pursuing "A diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies to minimise the risk that these weapons ever be used and to facilitate the process of their total elimination." Ongoing attempts to develop new, more usable nuclear weapons, and a refusal to rule out their use against non-nuclear weapon states raises doubts about Washington's commitment to this pledge.

Implications for allies

Some countries have welcomed the Bush administration's attempt to question many of the existing assumptions about arms control and non-proliferation. Britain, for example, conceded that the current international security environment required "a review of the 'counter-proliferation toolbox,' with a view to countering the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and missiles."[23] Others, especially France and Germany, remain suspicious of this new approach. In June 2001, on the eve of President Bush's arrival in Europe, President Chirac of France and Chancellor Schroeder of Germany issued a joint declaration underlining European support for the principles of multilateral arms control, stating, "France and Germany consider that the risks of ballistic proliferation necessitate a strengthening of the multilateral non-proliferation instruments."[24]

In many ways the United States is correct to question the value of the existing framework of arms control and disarmament efforts. The current impasse at the Conference on Disarmament and the unresolved NPT status of Israel, Pakistan and India point to a system badly in need of restructuring. In addition, the Bush administration deserves credit for breaking the logjam on nuclear disarmament and for making positive statements regarding reducing US dependency on nuclear forces. In addition the United States is eager to engage on certain arms control issues, in particular the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT).

However, Washington would get a more positive reception to its reassessment if it were able to convince the world that it was based on something more than an attempt to loosen constraints on US nuclear planning. While an increased ability to respond militarily in the world may increase US security in the short term, the challenge facing the global community is to convince Washington that true security can only be achieved by developing an effective binding and verifiable multilateral arms control framework.

Although US allies have their work cut out if they are to be successful in this endeavour, preserving the NPT in some form and keeping track on the Russian nuclear arsenal are two specific issues that Washington is likely to support. The former is indicated by the recent report from the DTRA and other statements from the Bush administration, while as regards the latter, Washington recently increased its funding for programmes aimed at securing and dismantling the Russian nuclear arsenal. The challenge is to convince Washington that fulfilling its NPT commitments is integral to achieving both of these goals.

Key objectives will be to push Washington to take further steps towards re-affirming its moratorium on nuclear testing in order to ensure that the CTBT does not collapse before the political climate in Washington becomes more amendable to ratification. Another priority must be to convince Washington of the importance of making its upcoming arms reductions with Russia irreversible and of the need to restate its negative security assurances. If non-nuclear weapon states are to be convinced of the value of staying within the NPT they will need to be convinced that the nuclear weapon states are taking active steps towards eliminating their nuclear arsenals and decreasing rather than increasing the chance that they will be used. Upcoming meetings of the G8, NATO and the NPT PrepCom in April all present opportunities for European governments to make the case for these objectives.

On the one hand, it should be recognised that the current environment is clearly not conducive to substantial gains being made in this area at this time. As the United States continues apace with its war on terrorism it is becoming increasingly impatient of European criticism of the way the war is being fought, the treatment of prisoners at Camp X-Ray and its policies towards the "axis of evil". It is therefore unlikely to heed any further critique of its arms control agenda. On the other hand, however, as the NPT is one of the few multilateral arms control agreements the United States wishes to preserve, Europeans may find that it is an area where Washington is more amenable to active engagement.

Conclusion

The 2002 US NPR is a severe setback to the Programme of Action agreed only two years earlier at the 2000 NPT Review Conference. The Programme raised expectations that the nuclear weapons states would at last begin to discuss seriously the elimination of nuclear weapons. There will be a sense of betrayal amongst all the non-nuclear weapon states at the continuation and further development of US nuclear doctrine as outlined in the NPR. This will not lead to immediate withdrawals or threats, but over time, loyalty to the NPT will wane and gradually a larger number of states may begin to acquire nuclear weapons to solve their own security problems. Such proliferation would increase the chances of a regional nuclear war- whether by accident or design- in the next half century.

--

End Notes

[1] Statement of the Honourable Douglas J. Feith Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, Senate Armed Services Hearing on the Nuclear Posture Review, February 14, 2002

[2] ibid.

[3] "Nuclear Review Retains Old Posture" by Joseph Cirincione and Jon B. Wolfsthal, Carnegie Analysis, January 17, 2002

[4] "U.S Nuclear Plan Sees New Weapons and New Targets" by Michael Gordon, New York Times, 10 March 2002

[5] "The Unruly Hedge: Cold War Thinking at the Crawford Summit" by Hans M. Kristensen, Arms Control Today, December 2001

[6] "U.S. Will Hold 2,400 Warheads in Short-Term Reserve" by Jonathan Wright, Reuters, 22 March 2002

[7] "Faking Nuclear Restraint: The Bush Administration's Secret Plan For Strengthening U.S. Nuclear Forces", National Resources Defence Council, 13 February 2002

[8] Douglas J. Feith Statement

[9] ibid

[10] See Controlling Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons: Obstacles and Opportunities, Jeffrey A. Larsen and Kurt J. Klingenberger eds. (United States Air Force Institute for National Security Studies, 2001)

[11] "Powell Says U.S. Plans To Work Out Binding Arms Pact" by Todd S. Purdum, New York Times, 6 February 2002

[12] "Transforming Defense - National Security in the 21st Century", Report of the National Defense Panel, December 1997

[13] Douglas J. Feith Testimony

[14] "Nuclear Plans Go Beyond Cuts, Bush Seeks a New Generation Of Weapons, Delivery Systems" by Walter Pincus, Washington Post, 19 February 2002

[15] "Secret Plan Outlines The Unthinkable" by William M. Arkin, Los Angeles Times, 10 March 2002

[16] Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review, J.D. Crouch, Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security Policy, Department of Defense News Transcript, 9 January 2002.

[17] "Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons" by Robert W. Nelson, FAS Public Interest Report, January/February 2001

[18] "New US nuclear policy maintains ambiguity" by Jeff Erlich, Defense News, 6-11 January 1998

[19] "US Adopts Clinton Policy on Use of Nuclear Weapons" by Jonathan Wright, Reuters, 22 February 2002

[20] "Secret Plan Outlines The Unthinkable" by William M. Arkin, Los Angeles Times, 10 March 2002

[21] The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence and a New Direction by Keith B. Payne (The University Press of Kentucky, 2001) p.193

[22] "The Future Integrity of the Global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime Alternative Nuclear Worlds and Implications for US Nuclear Policy", Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Advanced Systems and Concepts Office, April 2001

[23] "British-US Relations", Report of the UK Foreign Affairs Select Committee, 18 December 2001 [24] "Franco-German Defence and Security Council Declaration", Seventy-Seventh Franco-German Summit, Freiburg, 12 June 2001

Mark Bromley Analyst British American Security Information Council (BASIC) Lafone House 11-13 Leathermarket Street London SE1 3HN Phone: +44 (0)20 7407 2977 Fax: +44 (0)20 7407 2988 Website: http://www.basicint.org

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

U.S. finds no widespread corrosion at nuclear plants

Thursday, April 11, 2002
By Tom Doggett,
Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/04/04112002/reu_46907.asp

WASHINGTON - A U.S. government-ordered review of more than five dozen nuclear power plants has not found any corrosion in reactor caps similar to that at the Davis-Besse facility in Ohio, a top U.S. energy official said on Wednesday.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) launched an investigation last month after a corroded cavity was found in the reactor vessel head of the 25-year-old plant owned by FirstEnergy Corp . The agency ordered 68 other similar reactors - more than half of the nation's 103 nuclear plants - to look for similar problems.

"I am not aware of any other problems they found," said U.S. Energy Undersecretary Robert Card, adding that he had been briefed by NRC officials on the matter.

"Thus far, there haven't been any surprises or safety issues in the nuclear plant review," said an NRC spokeswoman.

Card, who was attending a meeting of the National Petroleum Council, said the Energy Department was worried that if serious corrosion had been detected, some of these reactors could have been shut down for up to a year. That was because the companies that make the huge metal reactor caps were already behind in filling other orders.

He also said the department was worried that shutting down nuclear plants would have caused a spike in natural gas prices, as utilities would be forced to ramp up generation at plants that run on natural gas. "If half the nuclear fleet went down for six months, you'd nearly double the natural gas need. It can't be done," he said. Natural gas provides 15 percent of electricity generation, nuclear power accounts for 20 percent, and coal about 50 percent.

During a scheduled refueling outage at the Davis-Besse plant that began Feb. 16, FirstEnergy engineers found boric acid had leaked at the base of several of the control rod nozzles that penetrate the reactor. Boric acid is used in the primary coolant bath surrounding uranium rods in the reactor core.

At one of the nozzles, the acid had eaten all the way through the vessel head, which was 6 inches (15 cm) thick. The vessel head is a massive piece of carbon steel 17 feet (5.2 meters) wide that is bolted down on top of the reactor to prevent any radioactive material from escaping. The corrosion was so severe that a stainless steel liner 3/8-inch (1 cm) thick inside the reactor was the only barrier left between the reactor core, which operates under enormous pressure, and the metal shroud surrounding the reactor vessel.

FirstEnergy representatives met on Wednesday with officials from the NRC to discuss proposed repairs at the Davis-Besse plant. Agency approval is needed before work could begin.

The company wants to cut the most damaged area at the top of the reactor head and cover it with a stainless steel plate. The plate would be 12 to 13 inches in diameter, about five inches thick, and weigh between 300 to 400 pounds. It would be welded in place using robotic equipment.

-------- new york

Taking a Chance

New York Times
April 11, 2002
By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/opinion/11HERB.html

Mistakes happen. Back in the 1950's, as scientists and others tried to imagine what it would be like if nuclear power were tapped as a solution to the nation's burgeoning energy needs, there was a pretty widely held belief that nuclear reactors should be located far from heavily populated areas. It was understood that an accident could be catastrophic. Edward Teller, among others, suggested they be built underground.

But as Peter Bradford, a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, wrote in a recent article for a publication of the Natural Resources Defense Council:

"These conservative approaches collided with economic reality. With oil and coal inexpensive, utilities would not undertake the cost of building new power plants underground or far from their urban power consumers. Instead, massive concrete containment domes became the primary safeguard.

"A 1957 [Atomic Energy Commission] study concluded that a catastrophic accident breaching the containment might cause 3,400 "early" deaths and 43,000 serious injuries. Nevertheless, among the first sites licensed by the A.E.C. were Indian Point, some 25 miles north of New York City, and Dresden, close to Chicago."

Indian Point is considerably more problematic now. For one thing, it's had a disturbing safety history and one of its two reactors currently has the worst safety rating of all 103 reactors in the United States. The second thing is that the safety dynamic has changed radically since the terror attacks in the U.S. last Sept. 11.

It's not that either a serious accident or a terrorist attack at Indian Point is likely. It's that nearly everyone realizes now that some terrible occurrence is possible. And new polling data compiled by the respected Marist Institute for Public Opinion show that more and more residents of the metropolitan area feel that the benefits to be derived from the continued operation of Indian Point are not worth the risks.

The polling was done for Riverkeeper, an environmental group that is campaigning to have the power plant shut down. Separate surveys were conducted of people living within 10 miles of the plant and residents within a 50-mile radius.

Not surprisingly, the surveys found that 79 percent of residents within 10 miles of the plant and 82 percent of residents within 50 miles were concerned or very concerned about the possibility of a terrorist attack at Indian Point.

Sixty-two percent of residents within 10 miles of the plant believe it should "definitely" or "probably" be closed. (Thirty-five percent said definitely, 27 percent said probably.) Fifty-four percent of residents within 50 miles of the plant said it should definitely or probably close. (Twenty percent definitely, 34 percent probably.)

Large majorities of those who want the plant closed said they favored a shutdown even if that would mean a jump in energy costs, a loss of jobs at the plant and a significant loss of revenue to the Westchester County town of Cortlandt, where Indian Point is located.

The poll found serious disenchantment with the use of nuclear power in general as an energy source. Sixty percent of residents within the 10-mile radius and 65 percent of those within the 50-mile radius opposed or strongly opposed the use of nuclear energy as a power source for their communities.

The poll results were released at a press conference yesterday outside Gov. George Pataki's New York City office. Riverkeeper and its supporters are hoping the poll will help nudge Mr. Pataki and other politicians toward their position that the plant should be closed. Alex Matthiessen, Riverkeeper's executive director, said at the press conference, "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would never allow this plant to be built today. They wouldn't build it in such a dense area. Now, given the terror risk, there's no reason to justify the plant's existence."

Mr. Pataki has urged the federal government to reassess its guidelines for dealing with an emergency at Indian Point. Back in February he said, "The federal approval of the plan for Indian Point was put in place in 1996. It's six years later and since Sept. 11, everything has changed."

-------- ohio

Ohio Utility Offers Repair Plan

By Malia Rulon
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, April 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28750-2002Apr10?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- An Ohio utility proposed Wednesday the most extensive repair job ever done to an operating nuclear power plant to repair two spots of acid corrosion on a reactor head.

The plan, which must be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, would use a 300-pound, 5-inch-thick stainless steel plate, welded into a 13-inch-wide circle around the largest corroded area of FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse plant on the shores of Lake Erie.

Two steel plugs would be welded into nozzles to blend over the second corroded area, said Jim Powers, a nuclear engineer for the company. The nozzles are steel pipes that protect control rods, which are used to control the amount of power produced or, in an emergency, shut down the reactor.

The company stressed that although the rods from the damaged nozzles will be moved, the plant will still be able to operate safely. Davis-Besse is on the lake about 25 miles east of Toledo, Ohio,

Last month, inspectors found that longtime water leaks had allowed boric acid to eat a 7-inch-wide hole almost through the 6-inch-thick steel cap that covers the plant's reactor vessel. The hole was stopped by an inner lining made of noncorrosive stainless steel.

Critics of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission questioned whether the agency would be able to monitor the plant enough to keep the corrosion from recurring.

"This utility has demonstrated a lack of responsibility, and the regulators have demonstrated a lack of oversight. Those are broader issues that this repair plan doesn't address," said Paul Gunter of the Washington-based Nuclear Information & Resource Service.

Davis-Besse has been shut down since discovery of the corrosion. Since then, federal inspectors have begun a review of the 68 other similarly designed pressurized reactors across the country.

Preliminary findings of the industrywide review have turned up nothing similar to the Davis-Besse damage, the NRC said this week.

The repairs, expected to cost between $15 million and $20 million, should keep the plant operating until a refueling shutdown in 2004, during which FirstEnergy plans to install a new reactor head, said company spokesman Todd Schneider.

The 24-year-old Davis-Besse plant generates enough power for 450,000 homes, 24 percent of FirstEnergy's nuclear power capacity.

On the Net:
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
FirstEnergy Corp.: http://www.firstenergycorp.com

----

U.S. Questions Nuclear Plant's Repair Plan

New York Times
April 11, 2002
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/national/11NUKE.html

BETHESDA, Md., April 10 - Officials from an Ohio nuclear power plant assured federal regulators today that they could repair corrosion that had eaten nearly all the way through a reactor lid, but faced a barrage of questions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff.

Executives of the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo met with commission officials to convince them that they could repair the hole by filling it with a 13-inch stainless steel disk, welded into place.

After a three-hour meeting, the executives left with a long list of questions to answer, including how they would make sure that the heat of a welder's torch would not further damage the metal.

Sixty-eight other reactors around the nation have a design similar to Davis-Besse's, and the commission is trying to determine if any of them have incurred the same kind of corrosion. All 68 have said they did not, but some did not provide enough of a basis for their assurances, said Ken Karwoski, a corrosion specialist with the commission.

At Davis-Besse, which is owned by the FirstEnergy Corporation of Akron, Ohio, cooling water from the reactor leaked from nozzles on the reactor head; boric acid, which is mixed into the water to control the nuclear reaction, ate away about 70 pounds of metal, going through six inches of exterior steel.

When the 25-year-old reactor was shut for refueling and repair of the nozzles this year, all that was left was a thin layer of steel meant to control corrosion inside the vessel.

The regulators were shocked by the extent of the corrosion. Leaks were well known, but government and industry officials believed that when they occurred, the temperature at the vessel head, more than 600 degrees, would boil the water away and leave nothing but a harmless boron powder.

After investigating, the commission staff concluded that the Davis-Besse operators had missed many opportunities to find the problem before it became so serious.

Critics of nuclear power agreed.

"When you're using a crowbar to knock the stuff off the reactor head, it's a sign you've gone too far," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Workers had pried boric acid off the head during a refueling shutdown in 2000.

At the meeting today, about a dozen commission staff members asked about the "repair concept" that company officials presented.

"It's a first-of-a-kind repair," said Brian W. Sheron, associate director for project licensing and technology assessment at the commission. "The staff is very concerned that whatever we approve, they are confident it is going to hold up."

One issue, Mr. Sheron said, was "just the sheer size of the weld" - to hold in place a piece 13 inches in diameter and about 6 inches thick.

FirstEnergy officials said the session had given them a clear indication of what information their plan would need to include to satisfy the commission. The company had hoped to submit that plan next week but company executives said after the session that it might take longer.

If contractors cannot repair the vessel head, the company plans to replace it with the head from a reactor in Midland, Mich., that was abandoned during construction, or the head of a retired plant in Sacramento. They have also ordered a new reactor head, but do not expect delivery before February 2004.

Delays are expensive because the plant employs 780 people, whether or not it generates electricity; property taxes alone run $500,000 a month. Officials hope to have the reactor running by summer.

Opponents say that would be too soon. Christine Patronik-Holder, a spokeswoman for the Safe Energy Communication Council, said that until everyone agreed on exactly how the corrosion occurred, "plans to place patches amount to little more than Russian roulette with the lives of northern Ohioans."

But the company is proceeding to figure out repair details, including how it will check for leaks when the work is completed.

Radiation dosage in the repair area is so high that a welder would absorb in two hours as much radiation as the industry usually allows workers to incur in a year. In two and a half hours, the welder would reach the annual limit the commission sets. So the plan will rely on robot welders.

Indeed, radiation in the affected area is so high that it will be a challenge just to X-ray the completed repairs to look for any flaws. Framatome, the French reactor company that will do much of the work, said it could compensate for the high background radiation.

-------- us nuc waste

Nuclear Waste Plan Not a Security Hazard - Ridge

April 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-energy-nuclear-ridge.html

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020411/pl_nm/energy_nuclear_ridge_dc_1

WASHINGTON - Transportation of nuclear waste to a proposed permanent dump site in Nevada could be done safely without undue danger of disruption by terrorist attack, U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said on Thursday.

Ridge said a review of the proposal by his office had concluded that adequate safeguards for transporting nuclear waste had already been developed by the Department of Energy and the U.S. military.

The proposed Yucca Mountain storage site would be the nation's first permanent repository for radioactive waste and has sparked a battle in Congress.

``We feel very confident that this can be done safely,'' Ridge told the American Society of Newspaper Editors. ``We don't believe ultimately that (transportation) should be an impediment.''

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn vetoed the proposal on Tuesday and the site's fate now rests with Congress, which has 90 working days to sustain or override the veto. Guinn has predicted an uphill battle to uphold the veto.


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Afghan Security Sweep Nets Rebel Suspects, Weapons

April 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-afghan.html

KABUL - International peacekeepers and Afghan forces have swooped on Taliban-al Qaeda hideouts in Kabul, arresting rebels suspected of firing rockets on the capital and seizing 151 Chinese-made rockets, officials said on Thursday.

Rocket-propelled grenades, mines and rifles were also seized on Wednesday in what was believed to be the biggest discovery of rebel weapons since peacekeepers arrived in December.

General Deen Mohammad Joorat, the Interior Ministry security chief, said there were more arrests of suspects in a plot to kill interim leader Hamid Karzai and ex-King Zahir Shah.

``We have also arrested a number of people in Kabul for firing rockets on installations of the ISAF,'' Joorat told Reuters. ``These people seem to have links with the Taliban and al Qaeda.''

Joorat said the weapons haul foiled plans for more rocket attacks on the 18-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul after two of the 107 mm rockets landed near one of its main installations earlier in the week.

Later, four more rockets set to be fired by timers were found aimed at ISAF bases.

The raids were part of efforts to stamp out a surge of violence in the past week that has included an assassination attempt on Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim, a rocket attack on peacekeepers and attacks on aid workers.

Special U.N. Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, complained to the authorities on Thursday about attacks on aid workers after an Afghan employee of the Food and Agricultural Organization was shot dead in his Mazar-i-Sharif home.

``This is part of a disturbing pattern of attacks on civilians, including humanitarian personnel, in the northern region in recent months,'' a U.N. statement said after the U.N. worker, Shah Sayed, was killed on Wednesday in the main city in the north.

``SIGNIFICANT FIND''

ISAF spokesman Flight Lieutenant Joel Fall said members of the nearly 5,000-strong ISAF, in collaboration with Afghan police, uncovered a weapons cache on Wednesday that included 151 rockets similar to the two fired at the ISAF base.

``It was a quite significant find,'' Fall told reporters.

The sizes of the weapons caches were also a wake-up call, if one was needed, to the threat posed to Karzai's administration by opposition forces.

The rockets were found about half-way between Kabul and the former Soviet air base of Bagram, the main staging post for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

The other weapons were found in Kabul homes.

There are about 5,000 U.S., British and other foreign soldiers at Bagram, which is about 50 km (30 miles) from Kabul.

A second wave of British commandos landed there early on Thursday to join U.S.-led forces fighting Taliban and al Qaeda guerrilla holdouts.

When they are at full strength by mid-April, the 1,700 commandos, engineers and support personnel will be Britain's largest combat deployment since the 1991 Gulf War.effort will be 6,100 personnel -- second only to the United States.

Britain leads the Kabul-based ISAF and has nearly 2,000 peacekeepers in the Afghan capital, but is due to hand over command to Turkey.

PLOT, DEATHS

Washington blames the al Qaeda network, led by Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, for the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan for five years under an extremely strict interpretation of Islam, became a target of U.S.-led forces for giving bin Laden and his fighters refuge.

Last week, authorities rounded up nearly 160 people in the capital accused of plotting to kill Karzai as well as former King Zahir Shah, who is due to return home next week.

The government said the suspects were mainly followers of fundamentalist former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who has denounced the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

In his meeting with Afghan authorities, U.N. special representative Brahimi listed a number of attacks on aid workers since the start of the year.

They included the murders of several other Afghans working for aid agencies as well as intimidation of families of relief workers.

The attacks have mainly been around Mazar-i-Sharif, the base of Deputy Defense Minister Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful warlord who regards the area as his personal fiefdom.

-------- balkans

War Crimes Suspect Commits Suicide

April 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Yugoslavia-War-Crimes-Suicide.html

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- A former Serbian police chief, indicted for war crimes, committed suicide Thursday hours after the Yugoslav parliament adopted a law that allows arrests and extraditions to a U.N. tribunal.

Vlajko Stojiljkovic, who headed the police during the reign of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, shot himself in the head in front of the downtown federal parliament building.

-------- business

Raytheon Gets Missile Radar Contract

The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28003-2002Apr10?language=printer

BEDFORD, Mass. -- Raytheon Co. has received a $48.7 million contract to upgrade Patriot missile radars for the Army.

Lexington-based Raytheon said it would deliver four Radar Enhancement Phase III kits, which double the average power of the radars that guide the missiles, and four of another type of kit which helps the radar distinguish between legitimate targets and debris and decoys.

The award will bring to 48 the number of upgraded Patriot radar units, said Col. Tom Newberry, project manager Lower Tier Program Office at the Army's Aviation & Missile Command in Redstone Arsenal, Ala.,

The work on the projects will be performed at Raytheon facilities in Andover, Bedford, Sudbury and Tewksbury.

Raytheon shares rose 97 cents to $39.67 in trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

-------- colombia

Colombia Rebels Abduct Nine Provincial Lawmakers

April 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-colombia-attack.html

BOGOTA, Colombia - Leftist Colombian rebels masquerading as police bomb experts kidnapped at least nine provincial lawmakers in a raid on the legislative assembly in the city of Cali on Thursday, herding them into buses while warning of a bomb threat, authorities said.

A witness said the rebels used a megaphone to order the lawmakers to evacuate the chamber through an emergency exit where the buses were waiting.

One police officer was shot and killed in cross-fire as the rebels made their getaway. Initial police reports indicate that five of their kidnap victims have been released.

The government and the army said the assault in Colombia's second-largest city was likely the work of the 17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, who were also blamed for planting small bombs in the capital Bogota earlier this week.

Colombian police chief Gen. Luis Ernesto Gilibert said the rebels -- donning red berets, camouflage fatigues and accompanied by dogs -- were the spitting image of the country's bomb squad.

``They were in uniforms. They killed a police officer that was working at the assembly. Some people that were inside got on board some buses on the pretext that there was a bomb,'' Gilibert said.

Interior Minister Armando Estrada said helicopters had been dispatched to search for the rebels and their abductees. He added there was some shooting on the outskirts of the city.

Long before the February collapse in peace talks with the FARC, rebels have been threatening to take their 38-year-old guerrilla war to Colombia's biggest cities. The conflict has claimed 40,000 lives in the last decade.

In the past week, four small bombs were discovered in Bogota. Three of them exploded near government offices downtown, injuring a small girl and two adults. Another was safely detonated by police.

The attack followed a car bomb the same day on Bogota's outskirts that killed two police explosive experts. Another car bomb had detonated just southwest of Bogota over the weekend, killing 12 people and injuring about 70 others.

Like the kidnappings on Thursday, police and the army blamed the bombings on the FARC -- but have yet to present any proof linking the actions to Latin America's largest and oldest rebel force.

The urban assaults come before Colombia's May 26 presidential election and the increasing sense of insecurity here has helped front-running, anti-rebel candidate Alvaro Uribe soar in opinion polls. Uribe promises to strengthen the military.

Pastrana will also make a security push in a visit to the United States beginning next Wednesday. The outgoing president hopes to raise Colombia's profile in the expanding U.S. war on terrorism by winning aid to fight leftist rebels.

The United State brands Colombian rebels ``terrorists.''

President Bush included millions in aid for Bogota as part of his $27 billion emergency package for the war on terrorism. The funding is part of a U.S. policy shift as the Bush administration presses Congress to lift restrictions that limit the use of Colombia's $1 billion in mostly U.S. military aid to the war on cocaine.

--------

Colombian Instability Concerns U.S.

April 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Colombia.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a push for expanded aid to Colombia, Republican lawmakers and Bush administration officials said Thursday that the South American country's guerrilla war threatens the security of the United States.

They said the immediate danger stems from guerrillas' involvement in drug trafficking and terrorism and the threat they pose to regional stability. The chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Rep. Henry Hyde, called Colombia ``a potential breeding ground for international terror equaled perhaps only by Afghanistan.''

``In the midst of the spreading chaos in that country, criminal and terrorist networks mix freely, unfettered by morality or the rule of law,'' said Hyde, R-Ill., at a hearing of the panel's Western Hemisphere subcommittee.

Democratic lawmakers questioned whether the United States should take on a bigger role in Colombia and whether the Bush administration has clear goals there.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas noted that the Colombian conflict has its roots in bloody political fighting from the 1940s.

``We're going to get involved in a civil war this long as something dealing with terrorism, as something dealing with 9-11. I think this is really, really a stretch,'' he said.

The Bush administration is asking Congress to end restrictions that generally limit Colombia's use of U.S-provided military equipment to drug-fighting missions.

The United States has provided $1.7 million in drug-fighting aid, including dozens of helicopters, to Colombia in the past two years. Colombia is the world's largest producer of cocaine and the main supplier of heroin to the United States.

Following the Sept. 11 attacks and the breakdown of the Colombian peace process in February, the Bush administration emphasized the need to help Colombia fight terrorism as well as drugs. Both major guerrilla groups and the main right-wing paramilitary organization are on the State Department list of terrorist organizations.

Last month, the administration proposed lifting the restrictions on aid to Colombia and providing an additional $35 million to help it fight terrorism.

It had previously requested $98 million in next year's budget proposal to help Colombia protect a major oil pipeline frequently targeted by guerrillas. It is also seeking $731 million in additional drug-fighting aid next year for Colombia and its neighbors.

Democrats, including some who previously supported Colombian aid, have been reluctant to expand the U.S. role. They say the money already spent on Colombia hasn't slowed the flow of drugs and Colombia hasn't invested enough of its own resources in the fight against guerrillas.

``We cannot fight the Colombians' battles for them,'' said Rep. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the subcommittee's top Democrat.

Menendez asked Otto Reich, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, what the Bush administration hopes to accomplish in Colombia.

The top goal, Reich said, is ``a free democratic state in Colombia that continues to be a good friend of the United States and a good, friendly neighbor that doesn't pose a threat.''

The second goal, he said, is ``to eliminate the threat to our own people from terrorists and narcotics traffickers that are poisoning our population with their product and that could pose a threat from Colombia ... to the region and to the United States.''

On the Net:
House International Relations Committee:
http://www.house.gov/international--relations/

-------- drug war

Soldiers enforce poppy eradication

April 11, 2002
By Christopher Torchia
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020411-15015986.htm

MARJAH, Afghanistan - Armed with assault rifles and fistfuls of American dollars, government agents drove deep into Afghanistan's biggest poppy-growing region yesterday to begin enforcing a plan to eradicate the opium-bearing crop.

As soldiers with Kalashnikov rifles and grenade launchers looked on, tractors chewed up fields of poppy in one part of Helmand province, which produces most of Afghanistan's opium. Farmers said they had little choice but to accept state compensation money.

"They have gunmen, they have cars, they have force," said Durjan, a 23-year-old farmer who planned to plant beans where poppies once stood. "We have no option."

At the urging of the United Nations and foreign governments, the weak Afghan government is rushing to wipe out the crop that provides the raw material for heroin just two weeks before most farmers harvest the plant.

Afghanistan was once the source of 70 percent of the world's opium. The Taliban successfully banned poppies in 2000, but farmers quickly planted them again as the U.S. bombing campaign helped push the Islamic militia from power late last year.

The government initially offered poppy farmers $250 to destroy a jirib, an Afghan land measure equivalent to half an acre, but farmers in Helmand said the compensation did not cover their cultivation expenses and staged violent protests.

On Sunday, security forces shot and killed eight farmers who were protesting the state poppy policy in the Helmand district of Kajaki.

The government has since raised the amount of compensation to $350 per jirib, said Shabaz Ahmedzai, an adviser to interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai.

The amount is closer to the $400 farmers say it costs them to plant a jirib, but still far less than the $1,700 they could expect to receive if they harvested the poppies.

Durjan said he expected to be paid $1,750 by the government for his five jiribs.

Flanked by an aide with two stacks of crisp $50 and $100 bills, Mr. Ahmedzai sat in a farmer's guest house and doled out cash, note by note, to laborers who had complied with the eradication program.

He said the money had been provided by the United Nations, and urged foreign governments to provide more aid for schools, irrigation and other public projects to prevent more destitute farmers from turning to illegal crops.

"If this doesn't happen, we'll face the same problem again next year," he said.

Farmers in Marjah district, about 30 miles west of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, said they were willing to go along with the crop-eradication program.

But it was not clear whether the government would be able to wipe out all the poppy fields in Helmand before full-scale harvesting begins. Some farmers have already started harvesting their poppy fields early in hopes of finishing before the government moves to destroy the crop - signaling how difficult it will be for the weak Afghan government to carry out the eradication plan.

There are more than 100,000 acres of poppy across Afghanistan, according to a U.N. assessment. The new government banned the crop in January, well after farmers planted the seeds.

-------- israel / palestine

THE OVERVIEW
In New Rebuff to U.S., Sharon Pushes Military Sweep

New York Times
April 11, 2002
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/international/middleeast/11MIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position=bottom

GINAT CAMP, West Bank, April 10 - A day ahead of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's arrival in Israel in hopes of securing a truce, a Palestinian suicide bomber attacked an Israeli bus today and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to continue Israel's military sweep through the West Bank.

Rebuffing American demands for a withdrawal, Mr. Sharon said the United States and other nations should not "put any pressures upon us."

Mr. Sharon addressed soldiers at this improvised hilltop base overlooking Jenin, a Palestinian city where Israel pressed its offensive today by sending armored bulldozers crashing through the densely populated refugee camp.

Late tonight, an Israeli official said as many as 200 Palestinians had been killed in Jenin. Most, he said, were armed men. Palestinian resistance in Jenin, the fiercest that Israeli forces have encountered, appeared to be ebbing.

Israeli forces withdrew from three West Bank villages today, Yatta, Qabatya and Samua, but continued hunting suspected militants in four major cities and towns and an undisclosed number of other villages. Late tonight, Israeli tanks moved into Ber Zeit, a village in the central West Bank, The Associated Press reported.

Earlier in the day, Israel's security cabinet formally decided to continue the military operation, now nearly two weeks old. It acted after the suicide bomber struck, killing eight passengers and tearing apart a bus near Haifa, on the coast. Four of the dead were soldiers.

It was the first suicide attack in 10 days. For some it underscored the crying need they saw for Israel's military mission, and for others the folly they saw at its core.

Along Israel's embattled northern border, more missiles and mortar bombs were fired from Lebanon, despite American efforts to persuade Syria to restrain the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah. The attacks injured no one but fed fears of a widening conflict, further complicating Secretary Powell's difficult mission.

The secretary is arriving late Thursday at a moment filled with hostility and mistrust, burdened by the numbers of casualties on both sides, the bitter enmity of the leaders and the spreading separation of the two peoples.

Palestinian families have been hiding in their homes as Israeli patrols round up their men for questioning and Israeli machine-gun fire pounds through their streets. Israelis, despairing of Palestinian willingness to recognize a Jewish state, have been avoiding cafes, parks and malls for fear of suicide bombers.

After resisting becoming entangled here, President Bush reversed course and dispatched Secretary Powell as the body count grew and he came under pressure from Arab states, whose backing he is seeking for a possible attack on Iraq. The anxiety of Israeli officials over the Bush administration's evolving policy also increased today as the country's diplomatic predicament worsened.

The European Parliament urged the 15 members of the European Union, Israel's biggest trading partner, to impose sanctions against Israel because of the military operation.

Here at the military camp, Mr. Sharon warned about 50 soldiers sitting in the dirt beneath an awning here, their M-16 rifles in their laps: "We are in a diplomatic battle. Arab countries are pressuring the U.S. and European countries as much as they can in order to make Israel carry out a plan or plans that we can't."

He described Israelis as victims in a multifront war, a fight against terrorism, a "diplomatic struggle" and a "public opinion battle."

"We are the victims of terror," Mr. Sharon told the soldiers. It was a war Israel did not want or start, he said. "But we got to a situation where we couldn't deal with it anymore," he continued. "The terrible thing, and it is perhaps the cynicism of the world, is that the one being blamed, is particularly us."

The isolation of Yasir Arafat eased a bit today when Israel permitted other Palestinian officials to enter his besieged compound in Ramallah. The Palestinians then met in Jerusalem with Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, the Bush administration's special envoy here, to prepare for Secretary Powell's arrival. Israel had previously blocked General Zinni from meeting with the group.

Secretary Powell has said he wanted to meet with Mr. Arafat, a decision Mr. Sharon has called a "tragic mistake." Mr. Sharon considers Mr. Arafat an enemy of Israel, not a potential negotiating partner.

But Israel's defense minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said the government would not interfere with the secretary's plans. "As long as Powell wants to see Arafat, he can see him," Mr. Ben-Eliezer said after sitting at the prime minister's right hand during his remarks here. "We are not preventing him to see Arafat."

About 300 Palestinians surrendered in Jenin today, Israeli officials said. Witnesses described masses of women and children fleeing the refugee camp as bulldozers cut through the ramshackle warren of adjoining and stacked homes.

"Vietnam - something like that," said Eitan Gafni, a reserve soldier serving here, describing the condition of the refugee camp to Israeli television. "There's nothing there now."

In an overwhelming display of force within easy sight of Jenin, dozens of Israeli armored vehicles and tanks waited in a camp gouged out of the hillside, below where Mr. Sharon spoke late this afternoon.

At a checkpoint a mile or so away, mobile antiaircraft guns were parked, and mechanics worked on one engine. The soldiers said that they had served in the Israeli campaign in three cities, from Ramallah to Nablus to Jenin, and that the fighting had grown fiercer as they moved to each new front.

The Israeli Army continued to block journalists from entering Jenin, saying it feared for their safety. But Israeli officials were also nervously looking ahead to the eventual withdrawal, fearful that Palestinians would try to present the many corpses as evidence of an Israeli massacre.

Palestinians accuse Israeli ground forces of firing randomly into their neighborhoods. But many soldiers and Israeli officials said the Israeli Army was acting morally, and was even endangering its own men by applying force cautiously in an effort not to harm civilians.

Israelis are troubled by the world's perception of the military mission.

"I've seen pictures of us on the television, and we don't look very good," said Sgt. Dov Rifken, 20. But, he said, "we're supposed to protect our people, our country. We do what we need to do, and we make sure that's all we do."

The Palestinians have no military aircraft. They have been fighting mostly with semiautomatic rifles, homemade explosives and some mass-produced explosives like antitank weapons. Israel has been using the antiaircraft weapons, capable of shooting 3,000 20-millimeter rounds a minute, to pulverize houses containing gunmen.

"If we see some people shooting from a house, we take it down," Sergeant Rifken said.

In Jenin, said Cpl. Yaron Zeltzer, 20, "the Palestinians were really prepared, and there was a much more tough section of terrorists." The Palestinians had concealed booby traps in sewers and other unexpected places, he said.

On Tuesday 14 soldiers were killed in Jenin, 13 in an ambush. Another soldier died in Nablus on Tuesday, the victim of mistaken fire from Israeli forces.

Mr. Ben-Eliezer, the defense secretary, said he could not predict how much longer Israel would continue its military operation. But it was too early to stop, he said. "We can just evacuate today, and tomorrow the suicide bombers, the suicide shooters, will move again," he said.

Asked how Palestinians were able to carry out today's suicide bombing in Haifa, he said the Israeli operation could minimize terrorist capabilities and "destroy for a while the motivation" of attackers, but "there is no 100 percent answer to terror - no."

Palestinian officials say that rather than suppressing the motivation for such attacks, the Israeli operation is likely to feed it.

The Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for the Haifa bombing and attributed it to a Palestinian from the Jenin refugee camp. Hamas is opposed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it has engineered suicide attacks during previous diplomatic missions by General Zinni.

Those missions also coincided with halts in Israeli incursions into Palestinian-controlled territory that had resulted in many Palestinian deaths.

Some Israeli officials said the bomber had come from Tulkarm, where Israeli soldiers have withdrawn to form a cordon around the city. They dismissed any suggestion that the bombing undermined claims for the success of the mission, saying it actually demonstrated the dangers of withdrawing.

But in Washington, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, suggested that the bombing showed the wisdom of President Bush's call for a withdrawal. Mr. Fleischer said the attack underscored "the need for all parties to step back, for Israel to withdraw, and for the Palestinians and the Arabs to stop the violence, stop the killing."

The comment stunned Israeli officials, who read it as suggesting that the Israeli action provoked rather than prevented terrorism. "It legitimizes terror," one Israeli official said.

This official, who insisted on anonymity, expressed consternation at what he viewed as a reversal of American policy, from apparent support of the Israeli operation to Mr. Bush's demand, first made last Thursday, for withdrawal. "Do they want to go into a collision course with Israel?" he asked.

Secretary Powell plans to meet with Mr. Sharon before seeing Mr. Arafat. Israel offered Mr. Arafat the chance to hold the meeting in Jericho, which has not been raided by the army during this operation, rather than in battered Ramallah, in an office that is said to have turned rancid.

Such a move might also suit Israel purposes, one official acknowledged, since the pictures might be prettier in Jericho and Israel might even have the chance to raid Mr. Arafat offices, where military officers believe he is hiding wanted men.

Mr. Arafat declined the offer of a different venue, the Israeli official said.

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DIPLOMACY
Europeans Press Demands on Israel

New York Times
April 11, 2002
By TODD S. PURDUM
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/international/11POWE.html

MADRID, April 10 - A Europe seething at Israeli raids into Palestinian territories delivered a mixed message to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell today, blending tough talk of trade sanctions and suspension of arms sales to Israel with a strong endorsement of the secretary's Middle East peace efforts.

More than a decade after the Madrid peace conference began a promising era of diplomacy, Secretary Powell met foreign ministers here to try to stop the current bloodshed and salvage whatever shreds may remain of peace negotiations.

The European Union, Russia and the United Nations responded with support for his goals and a demand for an Israeli withdrawal, an end to Palestinian terror attacks and "an immediate, meaningful cease-fire."

The European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, France, voted 269 to 208 for a nonbinding resolution urging the European Union's 15 members to suspend preferential treatment to the 27 percent of Israeli exports that come to Europe.

European governments are divided on whether to apply such trade sanctions, and American and European officials both played down the possibility that any might take effect. Secretary Powell said that the topic had not been discussed in his meetings this morning and that it was premature to speculate on Washington's position.

Foreign Minister Josep Piqué of Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, agreed that predictions would be premature. "What we should do is concentrate on what we are doing now" - seeking a withdrawal, a cease-fire and resumption of peace talks, he said.

Secretary Powell planned to stop here for meetings with European officials before President Bush ordered him to the Middle East, and he expected an earful of European complaints on topics from the Middle East to Washington's plans for action against Iraq to Mr. Bush's recently imposed steel tariffs.

If he read the newspapers, he got plenty, including reports that Germany, one of Israel's closest European allies, was effectively suspending planned weapons sales to Israel, though German officials declined to comment.

But here today, Secretary Powell heard only a strong public statement of support from allies who had been pressing for weeks for American intervention in the Mideast. A senior American official said the endorsement allowed the secretary "to go to the region with these guys behind him."

"My mission is not in the least in jeopardy," Secretary Powell insisted at a news conference here this evening, shortly after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the military offensive in the West Bank would continue in the wake of another suicide bomb attack, despite strong American objections.

Although Mr. Sharon was quoted today as saying it would be a "tragic mistake" for Secretary Powell to meet with Yasir Arafat, the secretary said it was important to do so because "he is the leader of the Palestinian people, and I think the Palestinian people and the Arab leaders with whom I've met over the last several days believe he is the partner that Israel will have to deal with at some point."

In an apparent reference to an attack on Israeli soldiers in Jenin, the secretary was asked whether Palestinian violence in the opccupied territories against Israeli soldiers - not civilians - was terrorism. He turned the question around, saying, "violence of whatever form, whether one would call it an act of terrorism or an act of resistance, at this point is counterproductive." He added, "What we have to see now is an end to the violence, with whatever title you want to give to that violence, it is violence nonetheless and it is totally destabiliizing the region."

At the United Nations, the Security Council again postponed a vote on an Arab-sponsored resolution reiterating a demand for an immediate Israeli withdrawal and calling for an international monitoring force.

Earlier, Secretary General Kofi Annan, read a statement on behalf of the European Union, Russia and his own organization urging Israel and the Palestinian Authority to "cooperate fully" with Secretary Powell's mission and with "efforts to restore calm and resume a political process."

Mr. Annan added, "We call for an immediate, meaningful cease-fire and an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian cities."

Secretary Powell said he and his fellow diplomats, including Mr. Pique, Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov of Russian and Javier Solana, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, were "exploring different ideas" for advancing political talks in tandem with efforts to reach a cease-fire, but had no details about the form they might take..

"I have to speak to the parties in the region at greater length to see how they view this matter and to see how we can go forward," the secretary said, "and in due course I'm sure that we will let the whole world know what we believe is the proper way to go forward."

Even as it called for Israeli withdrawals, the statement issued by Mr. Annan also demanded that Mr. Arafat do more to end attacks on Israel. "We call on Chairman Arafat as the recognized elected leader of the Palestinian people to undertake immediately the maximum possible effort to stop terror attacks against innocent Israelis," the communiqué said.

Mr. Annan issued a stinging demand that Israel honor its obligations under international law to protect civilians and let relief organizations provide aid. "Respect for international humanitarian law and the humanitarian organizations is the most basic requirement for any nation that lays claim to democracy and membership in the international community," he said.

The group also expressed "grave concern" about the unstable situation on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, where the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has launched rocket strikes and drawn Israeli fire in return.

Syria now holds a rotating membership on the Security Council, and Mr. Annan said he had spoken with Syrian and Israeli officials who assured him that "they are going to do whatever they can."

In a pointed reminder of Syria's obligations, he noted that attacks across the border would violate Security Council resolutions and said, "Respect for decisions of the Security Council is the most basic requirement of international legitimacy."

A senior American official later said the United States was not convinced that Syria had done all it could to stop the attacks. "There's no question we think Syria has a responsibility to use its influence," he said.

The official said the situation in the north would be "something else to deal with" when Secretary Powell begins his meetings in Israel on Friday, after stopping Thursday to see King Abdullah II of Jordan.

----

Jenin: 'My mother ran for help. A soldier shot her in the head'

By Justin Huggler in the West Bank,
11 April 2002
Independent (UK)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=283752

Abdullah Washai had to watch his 17-year-old brother, Munir, slowly bleed to death. He took several hours to die. A hole had been ripped in his shoulder by a round from an Israeli helicopter.

When the boy's mother, Mariam, ran into the street screaming for help, Mr Washai says, Israeli soldiers shot her dead.

These are typical of the claims of those who have managed to escape the carnage of Jenin refugee camp, the scene of the worst fighting of Israel's onslaught in the West Bank.

The question that was facing Israel yesterday was: what will happen when the full story of what Israel has wreaked in the Jenin camp is revealed?

As the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv said in an editorial: "We can begin thinking today about the war after the war: the public relations war in the media in which Israel can be expected to be placed in the international defendant's seat, when the television screens around the world become filled with the spectacle of bodies lined up, destroyed houses and crying, distraught relatives."

The Israeli army was claiming last night it had finally taken control of all but a tiny section of Jenin camp. But the stories that have been coming out of Jenin for several days have been horrifying, although it is impossible to verify them because of censorship by the Israeli authorities, who have denied journalists access to the camp.

To reach Mr Washai and his grieving brothers, we had to scramble down a steep, wooded hillside, with the Israeli helicopters clattering overhead. As friends shuffled past to pay their respects, Mr Washai told his story, which cannot be confirmed, in the home of a friend who had taken the family in.

"My brother was shot on Saturday afternoon," he said. "A helicopter round came through the wall. It went into his chest and out through the back of his shoulder. We called for an ambulance, but when it came outside the Israeli soldiers shot at it. It had to go."

The International Red Cross has said Israeli authorities have been refusing to allow ambulances to treat the wounded all over the West Bank, which is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

"Munir bled until 10 o'clock that night," Mr Washai continued. "My mother went out into the street screaming for help for him. An Israeli soldier shot her in the head."

At one point he buried his head in his hands and appeared to have difficulty going on. He spent two days in the house with the bodies.

"Then we heard people gathering outside. We went out to try to get an ambulance, and the soldiers took us. They separated my brothers and me from my father. We haven't seen him since. As far as we know, the bodies of my brother and mother are still lying in the camp."

The soldiers held them for some days at a military camp and interrogated them. When they released them, they ordered them to go to Ramani, a Palestinian village near Jenin.

Yesterday afternoon, an ugly rumour was going around the village, where Mr Washai and others who have left the camp were told to go. There is no evidence but the Palestinians were saying bodies were being taken out of Jenin refugee camp in trucks.

Nahum Barnea, a well-known Israeli commentator, wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth yesterday: "A number of discussions were held on this disturbing issue by military officials. The general conclusion was that some way has to be found to move the bodies into Israel. If Israel does not find some way to give them a dignified burial, the bodies will bury Israel."

There were other disturbing claims from those in Ramani. Mohammed al-Sadi told us he was used as a human shield by Israeli soldiers as they advanced through the camp.

"The soldiers smashed their way in through my door and started smashing a hole in the wall of my house so they could get from house to house without going in the street," Mr al-Sadi told us in the mosque, filled with refugees.

"The soldiers made four of us walk in front of their tank as it advanced. There were two of my cousins and another man. Then they took us to a house where the soldiers were inside. They put us outside the front door so if anyone shot we would be shot first."

Ariel Sharon toured an army base near Jenin refugee camp yesterday. "Our wonderful soldiers have to be able to continue this struggle," he said.

However, his Defence Ministry announced late yesterday that troops have pulled out of the West Bank villages of Yatta and Samua, near Jenin, and Qabatya, near Hebron.

*A United Nations agency said yesterday it had protested to Israel about the arrest of a member of staff and 104 students at a technical training centre it runs in Ramallah. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said: "Incursions into UNRWA installations by Israeli forces and detention of UNRWA trainees and staff is completely unacceptable and contrary to Israel's obligations to guarantee the security of UN staff."

----

Israelis Pull Out of Some Areas, but Push Operations in Others

New York Times
April 11, 2002
By JAMES BENNET with TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/international/11CND-MIDE.html

JERUSALEM, April 11 - As Secretary of State Colin L. Powell headed here today for talks in hopes of securing a truce, Israel said it had pulled out of close to two dozen West Bank towns and villages but had moved into other Palestinian areas.

Secretary Powell said before leaving a meeting with European officials in Madrid that he spoke this morning to Mr. Sharon, who has vowed to continue Israel's military sweep through the West Bank.

The secretary said he would have a better idea of Mr. Sharon's military plans when the two men meet on Friday.

The Israeli military said today that it had arrested 4,185 Palestinians so far in its offensive, nearly double the figure announced two days earlier. Of those taken into custody, 121 were on Israel's wanted list, the military said.

In the Jenin refugee camp, meanwhile, about three dozen gunmen, including two militia leaders, surrendered to Israeli soldiers today. The camp has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting since the Israeli sweep began on March 29.

An Israeli Army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ron Kitrey, said the fighting in the camp was over. The army has sent armored bulldozers crashing through the densely populated refugee camp, demolishing buildings.

Israeli troops entered the West Bank towns of Dahariyah and Bir Zeit and the Ein Hilmeh refugee camp today and carried out arrest sweeps.

At the same time, Secretary Powell said he was told by Mr. Sharon that Israeli troops had pulled out of 22 small towns and villages. In a further incursion, a convoy of 15 Israeli tanks briefly entered the West Bank town of Tulkarem, and troops there arrested a 24-year-old Palestinian woman who, according to Israeli radio reports, was suspected of planning a suicide attack. The army had no comment, The Associated Press said.

Rebuffing American demands for a withdrawal, Mr. Sharon said Wednesday that the United States and other nations should not "put any pressures upon us."

Mr. Sharon addressed soldiers at Ginat Camp, an improvised hilltop base overlooking Jenin.

Late Wednesday night, an Israeli official said as many as 200 Palestinians had been killed in Jenin. Most, he said, were armed men.

Earlier Wednesday, Israel's security cabinet formally decided to continue the military operation, now nearly two weeks old. It acted after a suicide bomber struck, killing eight passengers and tearing apart a bus near Haifa, on the coast. Four of the dead were soldiers.

It was the first suicide attack in 10 days. For some it underscored the crying need they saw for Israel's military mission, and for others the folly they saw at its core.

Along Israel's embattled northern border, more missiles and mortar bombs were fired from Lebanon on Wednesday, despite American efforts to persuade Syria to restrain the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah. The attacks injured no one but fed fears of a widening conflict, further complicating Secretary Powell's difficult mission.

Palestinian families have been hiding in their homes as Israeli patrols round up their men for questioning and Israeli machine-gun fire pounds through their streets. Israelis, despairing of Palestinian willingness to recognize a Jewish state, have been avoiding cafes, parks and malls for fear of suicide bombers.

After resisting becoming entangled here, President Bush reversed course and dispatched Secretary Powell as the body count grew and he came under pressure from Arab states, whose backing he is seeking for a possible attack on Iraq. The anxiety of Israeli officials over the Bush administration's evolving policy also increased Wednesday as the country's diplomatic predicament worsened.

The European Parliament urged the 15 members of the European Union, Israel's biggest trading partner, to impose sanctions against Israel because of the military operation.

At the Ginat military camp, Mr. Sharon warned about 50 soldiers sitting in the dirt beneath an awning here, their M-16 rifles in their laps: "We are in a diplomatic battle. Arab countries are pressuring the U.S. and European countries as much as they can in order to make Israel carry out a plan or plans that we can't."

He described Israelis as victims in a multifront war, a fight against terrorism, a "diplomatic struggle" and a "public opinion battle."

"We are the victims of terror," Mr. Sharon told the soldiers. It was a war Israel did not want or start, he said. "But we got to a situation where we couldn't deal with it anymore," he continued. "The terrible thing, and it is perhaps the cynicism of the world, is that the one being blamed, is particularly us."

The isolation of Yasir Arafat eased a bit on Wednesday when Israel permitted other Palestinian officials to enter his besieged compound in Ramallah. The Palestinians then met in Jerusalem with Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, the Bush administration's special envoy here, to prepare for Secretary Powell's arrival. Israel had previously blocked General Zinni from meeting with the group.

Secretary Powell has said he wanted to meet with Mr. Arafat, a decision Mr. Sharon has called a "tragic mistake." Mr. Sharon considers Mr. Arafat an enemy of Israel, not a potential negotiating partner.

But Israel's defense minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said the government would not interfere with the secretary's plans. "As long as Powell wants to see Arafat, he can see him," Mr. Ben-Eliezer said after sitting at the prime minister's right hand during his remarks here. "We are not preventing him to see Arafat."

In an overwhelming display of force within easy sight of Jenin, dozens of Israeli armored vehicles and tanks waited Wednesday in a camp gouged out of the hillside, below where Mr. Sharon spoke late this afternoon.

At a checkpoint a mile or so away, mobile antiaircraft guns were parked, and mechanics worked on one engine. The soldiers said that they had served in the Israeli campaign in three cities, from Ramallah to Nablus to Jenin, and that the fighting had grown fiercer as they moved to each new front.

The Israeli Army continued to block journalists from entering Jenin on Wednesday, saying it feared for their safety. But Israeli officials were also nervously looking ahead to the eventual withdrawal, fearful that Palestinians would try to present the many corpses as evidence of an Israeli massacre.

Palestinians accuse Israeli ground forces of firing randomly into their neighborhoods. But many soldiers and Israeli officials said the Israeli Army was acting morally, and was even endangering its own men by applying force cautiously in an effort not to harm civilians.

Israelis are troubled by the world's perception of the military mission.

"I've seen pictures of us on the television, and we don't look very good," said Sgt. Dov Rifken, 20. But, he said, "we're supposed to protect our people, our country. We do what we need to do, and we make sure that's all we do."

The Palestinians have no military aircraft. They have been fighting mostly with semiautomatic rifles, homemade explosives and some mass-produced explosives like antitank weapons. Israel has been using the antiaircraft weapons, capable of shooting 3,000 20-millimeter rounds a minute, to pulverize houses containing gunmen.

"If we see some people shooting from a house, we take it down," Sergeant Rifken said.

In Jenin, said Cpl. Yaron Zeltzer, 20, "the Palestinians were really prepared, and there was a much more tough section of terrorists." The Palestinians had concealed booby traps in sewers and other unexpected places, he said.

On Tuesday 14 soldiers were killed in Jenin, 13 in an ambush. Another soldier died in Nablus on Tuesday, the victim of mistaken fire from Israeli forces.

Mr. Ben-Eliezer, the defense secretary, said he could not predict how much longer Israel would continue its military operation. But it was too early to stop, he said. "We can just evacuate today, and tomorrow the suicide bombers, the suicide shooters, will move again," he said.

--------

Israel Arrests More Than 4,000 Palestinians

April 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Arrests.html

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli military said Thursday it has arrested more than 4,000 Palestinians in its two-week offensive in the West Bank -- nearly double the figure announced two days earlier.

Of those taken into custody, 121 were on Israel's wanted list, the military said. Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said several hundred wanted men were among those detained.

In sweeps through Palestinian towns and villages, Israeli troops have ordered teen-age boys and men to assemble in schoolyards and other outdoor areas for questioning. Others have been arrested in house-to-house searches.

The military said that 4,185 Palestinians have been arrested since the start of ``Operation Defensive Shield,'' which was launched March 29 in response to a string of Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli civilians.

In an announcement Tuesday, the military said about 2,100 Palestinians were in custody.

It was the most extensive sweep since the Palestinians' 1987-1993 uprising against Israeli occupation in which thousands of Palestinians were arrested by Israel.

-------- space

Chomsky Connects Globalization & Space Domination

by Norman Miller
Thursday, April 11, 2002
From: Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space http://www.space4peace.org globalnet@mindspring.com

FRAMINGHAM - A standing room-only crowd of about 400 gathered last night in the College Center at Framingham State College to listen to Noam Chomsky talk about the Masters of the Universe, "Freaks" and globalization.

"There are people for globalization, and there are those who aren't for globalization," said Chomsky, an author of more than 30 books. "Those for globalization are those 100 percent without a brain - politicians, 100 percent of the media ... "

Chomsky is a noted liberal activist, and a professor of linguistics at MIT. His appearance was sponsored by FSC's Human Rights Action Committee.

In a similar speech he gave last month at Brandeis University, Chomsky described most world political and economic leaders as the "Masters of the Universe."

Those who oppose them on their quest for world economic domination are "freaks," of whom he counts himself as one.

A substantial part of his talk dealt with how mainstream media ignores facts regarding GATS, an international free-trade agreement.

"A business correspondent wrote that the service agreement, GATS, has generated none of the controversy the World Trade Organization did," said Chomsky. "The total opposite is true.

"One may ask why The New York Times business correspondent wrote that when the opposite is true. It's because he reads The New York Times and other journals like that where no one pays attentions to the freaks," said Chomsky. "He's not lying, he just doesn't know."

And that's the plan of the free trade proponents.

"The Masters of the Universe realize that their grip on the universe is very fragile if people knew what they did," he said.

A recent world forum on human rights in Brazil drew almost no press, Chomsky said. Issues discussed there, such as Brazil-African relations and women's rights, won't be heard until Americans feel the need to get involved.

"When it gets to the north and it affects the rich people, it can't be ignored," said Chomsky. "But it can be reported in a way that is not true."

Neither he, nor other peace activists are against globalization, Chomsky said. It's the definition of globalization that he disputes.

The Freaks say globalization's real definition is just international freedom for people, allowing them to go place to place.

He said the Masters of the Universe have warped the meaning to serve them, and to promote free trade.

"If capital flow is free, those that control capital movement will control everything," said Chomsky. "If a country makes irrational decisions, such as dealing with human issues, the Masters can threaten the stop of capital to town. For a poor country, even for a rich country like the United States, that's a constitution that can't be blocked."

The North American Free Trade Agreement, which was supposed to create trade among all three North American countries, worked well - for those who have money.

For the average person, things got a lot worse, Chomsky said.

Workers who would have come to the United States to find a better living were cut, because then President Bill Clinton knew that Mexicans would try to come over the border.

"After NAFTA, Clinton militarized the border to stop the flow of Mexicans," said Chomsky. "The flow of people was quickly cut back, which is anti-globalization."

In Mexico, salaried employees dropped by 25 percent, while hourly employees had their pay cut 40 percent.

That's what will happen if free trade is allowed in every country, Chomsky said.

"That's well understood by the Masters of the Universe, but it's not supposed to be understood by anyone else," he said.

To help keep things the way they are, the United States has continued to build its military, and Chomsky said it will continue to expand.

"The militarization of space is just a natural progression of what has already happened," said Chomsky. "You need an army to defend yourselves against the people you're going to exterminate. The United States is going to have a full spectrum domination of outer space. We need this to keep down the numbers of have-nots."

If anyone speaks out about free trade, and U.S. policies, they're called anti-American, Chomsky said. "Patriotism means you shut up, and we'll do what we want to do," Chomsky said.

-------- spy agencies

Russians: CIA Used Drugs to Recruit

By Vladimir Isachenkov
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, April 11, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31716-2002Apr11?language=printer

MOSCOW -- U.S. spies used drugged cookies and drinks to break the will of a Russian defense employee and recruit him as an agent, according to new details of Russian security service allegations published by a newspaper Thursday.

The Federal Security Service, or FSB, ridiculed the alleged U.S. espionage effort in the report in the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, saying the CIA once delivered secret instructions to their agent in invisible ink that melted away when he used Russian tap water to develop them.

"The Americans will never defeat us because they will never figure out that our tap water differs from that in Langley," the city in Virginia where the CIA is based, the newspaper said quoting FSB officials.

The FSB, the KGB's main successor, said Wednesday that CIA officers posing as embassy officials in Russia and another, unidentified former Soviet republic had tried to recruit an employee at a secret Russian Defense Ministry installation.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield and the U.S. Embassy in Moscow both declined to comment Wednesday on the allegations.

In the two-page report Thursday in Komsomolskaya Pravda, the FSB elaborated on details of the allegations. It identified the Russian expert as Viktor, 58, a worker of a defense ministry facility near Zhukovsky air base, the Russian air force's top flight test center near Moscow.

According to the newspaper, in April 2001 Viktor went to the U.S. Embassy in the unidentified ex-Soviet republic to seek information about a relative that has gone missing abroad. After leaving the embassy, he was found by local police sitting on a garden bench in shock and amnesia.

Viktor was brought to Moscow where the FSB concluded that the U.S. Embassy officers had slipped him psychotropic drugs to get information out of him.

The newspaper said that David Robertson, the Embassy official who met with Viktor, treated him with drinks and cookies while asking him "in-depth" questions about his work. "Within minutes, Viktor felt weakness and light trance," an apparent reaction to drugs, the newspaper reported.

Under FSB control, Viktor received instructions in invisible ink allegedly delivered by Yunju Kensinger, reportedly a third secretary in the consular department of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. On one occasion, the message began to melt away when Viktor tried to read it using special tablets and Russian tap water. FSB agents rushed to save it with bottled water, the newspaper said.

In the first message, disguised as a juice pack, the alleged U.S. contacts sent him $10,000 in cash along with instructions to provide information about confidential documents received by his organization and data on Russia's latest air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles.

After the FSB concocted a response, Viktor delivered it to Robertson in the same city where they first met. The newspaper said Viktor later received more cash and instructions from his handlers, but the FSB decided to end the operation after getting enough "factual evidence" of U.S. espionage activities.

Komsomolskaya Pravda said Kensinger had already left Moscow - the claim made Wednesday by the Interfax news agency and Russian television.

The espionage accusation comes amid renewed U.S.-Russian tensions following a warm spell prompted by Russia's support of the U.S.-led anti-terror campaign.

A former KGB spy in London, Mikhail Lyubimov, said the latest espionage allegations showed that the two countries remain interested in spying on each other despite better ties.

"Now the main effort is to get military and technical information," he told Associated Press Television News. "Whatever our relations are, I think that both countries are experimenting with new weapons, trying to make them more effective and better, and therefore this competition will proceed."

----

Russia Says It Has Uncovered an American-Run Espionage Ring

New York Times
April 11, 2002
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/international/europe/11RUSS.html

MOSCOW, April 10 - Russia's counterintelligence agency said tonight that it had broken an American-run espionage ring that officials said had employed a mind-altering drug in an effort to recruit an expert from a top-secret military plant.

Russian television and the Interfax news agency reported that an unidentified female C.I.A. officer working as a midlevel American diplomat had been forced to leave Moscow after the espionage plot, which took aim at Russian weapons projects and military work with former Soviet nations, was foiled.

Interfax also said a Central Intelligence Agency employee identified as David Robertson had met with the military expert, apparently outside Russia. But the news agency quoted counterintelligence officials as saying that the military expert had long been cooperating with Russian agents, and that no Russian military secrets were compromised.

American officials had no comment on the claims.

Today's disclosure, which the Russians called "irrefutable," came as Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met in Madrid.

Interfax quoted officials as saying that Russia might file a protest over the spying incident, placing another stone in an already rocky path toward improved relations. But political analysts here said that it was unlikely to seriously hinder the dialogue between the two nations.

The Federal Security Service, the domestic security arm of the former K.G.B., gave Russian news outlets few details, but Russian Public Television, the main state-controlled network, reported that the case began when a man who could remember only his first name, Viktor, was brought by police officers to the Russian Embassy of an unnamed former Soviet nation.

The network quoted officials as saying that Viktor could remember nothing except having visited an American diplomatic mission to ask about relatives living in the United States. Investigations showed that he was a scientist at a Russian Defense Ministry plant and that he had been given an unidentified mind-altering drug at an American Embassy in April 2001, the network said.

"The F.S.B. did some tests on him," an unidentified agent told the NTV television network, using the Russian initials for the security service, "and we established that he had known some government secrets and that he had been under psychoactive drug treatment for a long time."

A Russian security official interviewed on the ORT television network said the scientist agreed to work as a double agent, and that American agents later sent him seemingly innocuous letters that when dipped in water revealed coded instructions.

Russian agents followed the scientist and determined that the operation was being run by an official in the American Embassy in Moscow, the network reported.

Russia has trumpeted a string of dramatic counterespionage victories in the last two years. While some cases have been recognized as valid, human rights groups and other critics have charged that others are trumped-up propaganda efforts.

Russia and the United States have drawn closer since the Sept. 11 attacks prompted President Vladimir V. Putin to reorient Russian policy toward the West, and their intelligence services now share information on terrorism and other criminal activities. But officials of both nations tacitly acknowledge that cold-war espionage efforts have yet to cease, and are unlikely to soon.

--------

Russians: CIA Used Drugs to Recruit

April 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-US-Espionage.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- U.S. spies used drugged cookies and drinks to break the will of a Russian defense employee and recruit him as an agent, according to new details of Russian security service allegations published by a newspaper Thursday.

The Federal Security Service, or FSB, ridiculed the alleged U.S. espionage effort in the report in the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, saying the CIA once delivered secret instructions to their agent in invisible ink that melted away when he used Russian tap water to develop them.

``The Americans will never defeat us because they will never figure out that our tap water differs from that in Langley,'' the city in Virginia where the CIA is based, the newspaper said quoting FSB officials.

The FSB, the KGB's main successor, said Wednesday that CIA officers posing as embassy officials in Russia and another, unidentified former Soviet republic had tried to recruit an employee at a secret Russian Defense Ministry installation.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield and the U.S. Embassy in Moscow both declined to comment Wednesday on the allegations.

In the two-page report Thursday in Komsomolskaya Pravda, the FSB elaborated on details of the allegations. It identified the Russian expert as Viktor, 58, a worker of a defense ministry facility near Zhukovsky air base, the Russian air force's top flight test center near Moscow.

According to the newspaper, in April 2001 Viktor went to the U.S. Embassy in the unidentified ex-Soviet republic to seek information about a relative that has gone missing abroad. After leaving the embassy, he was found by local police sitting on a garden bench in shock and amnesia.

Viktor was brought to Moscow where the FSB concluded that the U.S. Embassy officers had slipped him psychotropic drugs to get information out of him.

The newspaper said that David Robertson, the Embassy official who met with Viktor, treated him with drinks and cookies while asking him ``in-depth'' questions about his work. ``Within minutes, Viktor felt weakness and light trance,'' an apparent reaction to drugs, the newspaper reported.

Under FSB control, Viktor received instructions in invisible ink allegedly delivered by Yunju Kensinger, reportedly a third secretary in the consular department of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. On one occasion, the message began to melt away when Viktor tried to read it using special tablets and Russian tap water. FSB agents rushed to save it with bottled water, the newspaper said.

In the first message, disguised as a juice pack, the alleged U.S. contacts sent him $10,000 in cash along with instructions to provide information about confidential documents received by his organization and data on Russia's latest air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles.

After the FSB concocted a response, Viktor delivered it to Robertson in the same city where they first met. The newspaper said Viktor later received more cash and instructions from his handlers, but the FSB decided to end the operation after getting enough ``factual evidence'' of U.S. espionage activities.

Komsomolskaya Pravda said Kensinger had already left Moscow -- the claim made Wednesday by the Interfax news agency and Russian television.

The espionage accusation comes amid renewed U.S.-Russian tensions following a warm spell prompted by Russia's support of the U.S.-led anti-terror campaign.

A former KGB spy in London, Mikhail Lyubimov, said the latest espionage allegations showed that the two countries remain interested in spying on each other despite better ties.

``Now the main effort is to get military and technical information,'' he told Associated Press Television News. ``Whatever our relations are, I think that both countries are experimenting with new weapons, trying to make them more effective and better, and therefore this competition will proceed.''

-------- un

[To reply, mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com]

No court dates for America

Jesse Helms and Zell Miller
April 11, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20020411-8454376.htm

The United Nations will interrupt its schedule this week to celebrate the launch of yet another international entity - the new International Criminal Court (ICC). Nonetheless, this event should not cause Americans to break out the party hats and kazoos.

This court is intended, its supporters claim, to bring justice where - supposedly - none currently exists, and to prosecute war crimes that could otherwise escape scrutiny. No other country has done more than the United States to minimize harm to innocent civilians when military action has been necessary.

It needs to be understood, however, that the ICC is without supervision or oversight. And, most alarmingly, this new court will claim jurisdiction over citizens of countries that have not agreed to be members of it. The ICC's jurisdiction will not be controlled or limited by any country's constitution or legislature. It will answer only to itself. This is not responsible government.

History teaches us that unchecked power is quickly and inevitably abused. Our Founding Fathers correctly identified limits on government power as the key to protecting individual liberties. This is a bedrock norm that should be applied to all international and national institutions.

The only means to keep the ICC in its proper place is the American Service Member's Protection Act, which we have introduced. The new court may very well run amok, but with passage of our bill, American men and women in uniform will be protected.

Since we introduced, and the Senate overwhelmingly approved our legislation, the world has changed. The so-called International Criminal Court is now a reality. The Middle Eastern flames of conflict have risen higher. The American military is pursuing organized and vicious international terrorists in a war of an unprecedented nature.

This is a war demanding our presence in many countries unfamiliar to most Americans, countries that are, or will be, members of this new court. While these brave American men and women protect us and others, risking injury and death in the process, they will also be at risk of prosecution because the necessary steps to protect them have not been taken. So it is only a matter of time until some nations, seeking to divert attention from their prior support of terrorist groups, will be trying to use the court to blur the distinctions between the terrorists and U.S. counter-terrorist efforts by trumping up charges against members of the armed forces of the United States.

The recent history of United Nations activities (such as the Conference Against Racism in South Africa last September) has made clear that nations with ill intent will manipulate international institutions by trying to turn them into lap dogs. This has become so obvious that even B'nai B'rith International, a leading activist for human rights and a staunch supporter of the concept of an international tribunal, has come to the reluctant conclusion that this court will not fulfill its intended purpose and, thus, can no longer be supported.

Others, we are confident, will follow the example set by B'nai B'rith. Recent protests over the treatment of captured al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are an indication of future international hypocrisy. These protests came while, just outside that American base, Fidel Castro unjustly imprisons human rights-advocates under vastly worse conditions.

The American Service Member's Protection Act is not yet law, but it must be enacted without further delay. U.S. counter-terrorist operations must continue. We must guarantee that Americans who are undertaking those operations at the lawful direction of our national authorities will bear no risk from a politicized ICC that is unsupervised and unaccountable.

We hope President Bush will take advantage of the opportunity coming in August - when the United States assumes the U.N. Security Council presidency - to unsign the Rome Statute, thereby divorcing the United States, finally and definitively, from the court.

Critics of the U.S. position mutter that the United States should remain involved in the structure of the court. Baloney. Just as the United States avoided membership in the ill-constructed League of Nations nearly a century ago, the United States should keep this new international travesty as far away from the American people as possible.

Sen. Jesse Helms is a Republican from North Carolina. Sen. Zell Miller is a Democrat from Georgia.

--------

World Criminal Court Is Ratified;
Praised by U.N., Opposed by U.S.

New York Times
April 11, 2002
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/international/11CND-COUR.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 11 - The world's first permanent criminal court for the prosecution of dictators and war criminals became a reality today, more than half a century after such a tribunal was first proposed in the ruins of World War II.

"The long-held dream of the International Criminal Court will now be realized," Secretary General Kofi Annan said. "Impunity has been dealt a decisive blow."

The court, which is strongly opposed by the White House, closes a gap in international law by holding individuals, not nations or armies, responsible for the most horrific crimes, Mr. Annan declared. He was speaking at a news conference in Rome, where more than 100 countries met in 1998 to propose the establishment of the tribunal.

The court is expected to take shape in The Hague over the next year, beside the International Court of Justice, known as the World Court, which rules in disputes between nations.

The establishment of the International Criminal Court, which will assume jurisdiction over genocide and war crimes cases beginning on July 1, has been broadly welcomed by most democratic nations, American lawyers' associations and human rights groups.

But it has an implacable foe in the Bush administration, which appears to be on the verge of not only renouncing the tribunal but also removing the signature of the United States from the treaty creating it.

The treaty, administration officials say, will never be sent to the Senate for ratification. Congress has already passed a law forbidding Americans at all levels of government from cooperating with it.

Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said in an interview that unsigning the treaty would set a terrible precedent.

"No American president in 200 years has unsigned a treaty, as far as we can find," he said. "It would also send a signal to other governments around the world that treaties they signed are unsignable."

Arms control advocates fear that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, barring nuclear explosions, may be next in line. The treaty was signed by the Clinton administration in 1996 and rejected by the Senate in 1999. The International Criminal Court, created to try individuals accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity officially came to life in a ceremony here this morning when 10 nations deposited their ratifications, pushing the necessary number to 66. A total of 60 ratifications were required.

"A page in the history of humankind is being turned," said Hans Corell, a Swedish judge and international lawyer and the United Nations' top legal officer, who accepted the 10 ratifications.

International law groups and human rights organizations say that American opposition to the court, not all of it from Republicans, has been successful in portraying it as a danger to American sovereignty and a threat to American officials and troops because there is so little known about the tribunal in the United States.

Richard Dicker, director of international legal programs at Human Rights Watch, said: `There has been such an active disinformation campaign about this court, and those who are behind this enjoy a real advantage in that they are describing an institution that does not yet exist.

"What they have done is describe it in the most nightmarish terms, with all kinds of scenarios of innocent Americans being persecuted by individuals from governments that are actively hostile to the United States."

He added: "It will be much harder to do that when we will run up against the reality of this institution that will be staffed by judges from the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, South Africa, Senegal, Argentina - states that are committed to the rule of law," he said.

Secretary General Annan tried to assuage American fears today.

"The court will prosecute in situations where the country concerned is either unable or unwilling to prosecute," he said.

"Countries with good judicial systems, who apply the rule of law, and prosecute criminals and do it promptly and fairly, need not fear. It is where they fail that the court steps in."

He said that functioning legal systems need not worry. "I don't think this a court that is going to run amok," he said.

--------

Global tribunal becomes reality

April 11, 2002
By Tom Carter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020411-64577967.htm

The International Criminal Court, a permanent judicial body to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, will come into being today despite U.S. objections.

The United Nations plans a ceremony today to inaugurate the court, an event made possible by 10 nations that have agreed to join more than 50 others in ratifying a treaty to set it up.

"Our closest and most powerful allies have ratified. Every NATO country except the United States and Turkey are participating," said Michael Scharf, who worked on the issue at the State Department during the Clinton and first Bush administrations.

The United States opposes the court, fearing it will become a vehicle for politically motivated charges against U.S. soldiers and civilians.

Canada, Australia, most European nations and Latin American democracies, however, back the court.

Today, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ireland, Jordan, Mongolia, Niger, Romania and Slovakia are expected to ratify the document. The court would begin its work July 1.

"Nuremburg was a baby step. This is a major evolution," said Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. "It is a global court. It has all the world's great legal traditions. It is permanent. It will change the way the world deals with human rights violators," he said yesterday.

President Clinton, who described the court as "flawed," nevertheless directed an envoy to sign the treaty, provoking outrage on Capitol Hill, where senators have vowed that the document would never be ratified.

Since that time, there has been a raging debate in the Bush administration over whether to formally withdraw the U.S. signature.

"We have made the decision that we will not be a part of this process. This day will come and go," said a State Department official on the condition of anonymity. "What is clear is that we are prepared to take steps to protect our interests."

The State Department official said that the option to "unsign" was still on the table, and that it was a matter for President Bush to decide.

"It is a real loss, very sad that the United States is not part of this initial group," Mr. Posner said. "We have such a strong history and tradition going back to the Nuremburg tribunal after World War II, as an international leader for justice."

He said the tribunal would open July 1 but not really be up and running until mid-2003. He tried to assure critics that the court would be going after only truly heinous human rights violators, on the scale of Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot.

And he expressed hope that the United States would eventually take part.

Critics said they would work to make sure that never happened.

"I think that signing a treaty that could turn around and bite you in the rear end is wrong," said Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican, who has lobbied the State Department and Mr. Bush to "unsign" the treaty.

Opponents of the treaty fear an independent tribunal, accountable to no one, could become an international "Star Chamber" prosecuting U.S. servicemen and civilians for involvement in U.S. policy abroad.

For example, the war on terrorism and ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan, in which innocent civilians were killed, might be construed as a war crime in some anti-American circles.

The American Servicemembers' Protection Act, sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican, mandates the use of force to rescue Americans brought before the court. Differing versions of the bill have been approved by the House and Senate.

Supporters claim that there are built-in regulations to protect Americans from politically motivated prosecution and that unsigning the treaty would set a terrible precedent.

"According to our research, it has never been done before, not once in 200 years," said Mr. Posner. "It would open the door to other countries to unsign treaties that we have an interest in."


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Few defends hazmat unit to Congress

By Matthew Cella
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 11, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20020411-62687442.htm

D.C. Fire Chief Ronnie Few yesterday told a congressional committee that he is confident in his department's ability to respond to biochemical emergencies, despite the recent findings of an independent auditor that criticized the hazardous materials unit's staffing, training and competency.

"My department is prepared and able to manage and mitigate any emergency that requires our services," Chief Few told the House Appropriations subcommittee on the District.

Chief Few testified on the city's emergency response capabilities yesterday along with Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, D.C. Emergency Management Agency Director Peter LaPorte and Margret Nedelkoff Kellems, deputy mayor for public safety and justice.

U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, Michigan Republican and subcommittee chairman, asked the officials about a report in The Washington Times on Tuesday that said a team of consultants contracted by Mayor Anthony A. Williams found the city's hazardous-materials (hazmat) unit deficient in all 10 criteria it measured, including staffing, training and competency.

The report, submitted by the Marasco Newton Group in December, recommended that the unit "needs improvement" or "needs significant improvement" in all areas and said "a number of outside agencies [shared] concerns regarding the safety and competencies of the hazardous materials unit within [the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services]."

"That review was done last fall, and since that time we've redoubled our efforts," Mrs. Kellems told the subcommittee yesterday. "We've put a dedicated unit together. It's built into next year's budget."

After the hearing, Chief Few said he had not seen the Marasco Newton report and couldn't comment on its contents until he had a chance to "thoroughly read" it.

"Our fire department's response to hazardous materials has changed quite a bit since September 11," he said, citing improvements in equipment and training and a commitment to a full-time dedicated hazmat unit.

The chief also said some of the problems the report cited were in place before he began as fire chief in 2000. "I can't correct every deficiency in 20 months," he said.

D.C. Council member Kathy Patterson, Ward 3 Democrat and Judiciary Committee chairman, said yesterday that the hazmat unit's deficiencies are "not new information."

But Mrs. Patterson, who served as the D.C. Council's representative on the mayor's Emergency Management Task Force, said she was unaware of the Marasco Newton study. She said she has reviewed it since The Times reported about it Tuesday.

"I'm sorry this wasn't brought to the task force's attention," she said. "Some of this information would have been useful."

Mrs. Patterson said she didn't know whether Mrs. Kellems was "misguided" in her statement that the hazmat unit is fully budgeted for 2003 but that it was clear after Judiciary Committee budget hearings last month that the Williams administration's plan was to continue funding the unit through overtime funds.

"When we mark up the budget, we will require staffing and funding," Mrs. Patterson said.

Mrs. Kellems told The Times yesterday that the federal government has provided $14 million to the D.C. fire department for equipment and training, including hazmat detectors and first-responder entry suits.

Mr. Knollenberg quizzed Chief Few about a report last week in The Times that said only four of 29 students in a paramedics class passed a national registry exam last month.

"It's just a difficult test, and sometimes they just don't pick it up in one area of expertise," Chief Few said. "Most people around the country have to take the test twice."

Chief Few said reports about half of the department's paramedic slots being vacant are "a little overexagerated." He did not elaborate or provide figures.

When asked about reports that a significant percentage of fire department employees are failing registry and certification exams, Chief Few said, "I can assure you this: When they pass, they will be quality paramedics."

-------- terrorism

Feds Link Anti - Terrorism Databases

April 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Agencies.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered federal agencies Thursday to link their anti-terrorism databases in an effort to prevent new attacks.

The order also requires sharing information more freely with local law enforcement agencies in hopes of removing bureaucratic barriers and rivalries that could stand in the way of preventing attacks.

``Information is the best friend of prevention,'' Ashcroft said in a statement accompanying the directive. ``To meet this continuing threat, law enforcement officials at all levels -- federal, state and local -- must work together.''

In response to the agencies' own analyses, the Justice Department directed them to take several steps to better share intelligence and other information. The steps include:

--Adding terrorist information in law enforcement databases. The government maintains several databases that provide real-time information to diplomats and law enforcement personnel. The order directs that more information be shared among them, including the names, photographs, and other information about known terrorists to prevent them from entering the country. The information will be shared among databases maintained by the State Department, the FBI and U.S. Customs Service, according to the Justice Department.

--Sharing more foreign terrorist information among nations. Ashcroft directed the FBI, through legal attaches, to establish procedures to obtain on a regular basis identifying information on terrorists known to other countries. In addition, the FBI and the Defense Department must gather on a regular basis to share information on terrorists known to the military establishment.

--Establish a secure system for sharing information with state and local agencies. Ashcroft directed Justice Department officials to develop a secure but unclassified web-based system to enable local, state and federal users to post and retrieve information on counterterrorism that is now only accessible to federal officials with appropriate clearance.


-------- ENERGY AND OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Industry: U.S. Could Tap Vast Geothermal Energy Sources

April 11, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-11-09.html#anchor9

WASHINGTON, DC, Though the U.S. continues to lead the world in geothermal energy production, the nation is starting to fall behind, shows data from the U.S. Geothermal Energy Association (GEA).

Geothermal energy production has expanded 50 percent over the past decade and is now serving over 47 million people worldwide, the GEA said today. At the beginning of the century, 21 countries produced electricity using their geothermal resources, or heat from the earth.

But geothermal production in the U.S. and Europe has shown just a slight increase, while other countries have had much larger gains. Over the last decade, geothermal production in Indonesia quadrupled, Japan almost tripled its geothermal power, and production from geothermal sources doubled in the Philippines, now meeting 25 percent of the country's total electricity needs.

In contrast, there has been almost no growth in total U.S. geothermal energy production in the past decade.

"But this could change," said Karl Gawell, executive director of GEA. Measures being considered in Congress could bring on a new geothermal power boom in the U.S., he explained.

"If Congress acts to support renewable energy, we could see a return to the double digit annual growth that occurred in the '80s," Gawell said.

The GEA highlighted two Senate energy bill provisions: the production tax credit and renewable portfolio standard.

The Senate bill would expand the production tax credit to new geothermal facilities. This tax provision is credited with fueling the growth of the wind industry in the U.S., but is not now available to other renewable technologies. The Senate has also adopted a national renewable portfolio standard that would require power generators to produce 10 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2020.

"The progress made over the past decade is good news for the earth's environment, but just the beginning of what we could do if governments placed greater emphasis on developing their geothermal and other renewable energy resources, particularly the U.S. government," Gawell said.

The GEA says that geothermal resources have the potential to support 80,000 megawatts of power using today's technology, which would meet the electricity needs of 865 million people.

"The heat of the earth is an enormous resource that we have just begun to tap," said Gawell.

----

German SolarWorld says sales up 60 pct in 2001

REUTERS GERMANY:
April 11, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15421/newsDate/11-Apr-2002/story.htm

FRANKFURT - Bonn-based SolarWorld AG said this week its sales turnover rose by 60 percent to over 82 million euros in 2001 thanks to growth in its production of solar wafers and solar cells.

"The solar maket is growing by 25-30 percent a year worldwide, while we are growing by 60 percent a year," SolarWorld Chief Executive Officer Frank Asbeck told Reuters in an interview.

Wafers are cut from solar silicon and used to produce solar cells, which are then used to convert sunlight into electricity.

By year-end Asbeck said SolarWorld will be the world's biggest solar wafer producer, Europe's number one solar cell maker and second only to BP in European solar module production.

SolarWorld said the holding company's earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) rose 31 percent to 13.389 million euros, while its net profit quintupled to 7.543 million euros.

Asbeck declined to give the firm's expected results for 2002.

The company told Reuters in February it expected to overtake Japanese competition to become the world's leading solar silicon wafer producer by yea-rend with a production capacity of 120 megawatts (MW) compared with its Japanese competitors' estimated 96 MW.

But Asbeck said it would almost reach that target by mid-year with 80 MW.

Asbeck said last October he planned a joint venture with a leading chemicals firm to produce silicon for use in solar power cells.

While he would not confirm rumours that its partner would be German chemicals giant Degussa , Asbeck said he would announce the deal at the end of May.

Solar grade high-purity silicon, used in crystalline solar cells, is the basic material for the photovoltaics industry.

The sector has been able to take advantage of an increased surplus of electronic grade silicon, which can be used as an alternative material, because of the slow down in the computer industry that has led to a slump in demand for semicondictors.

But that surplus is forecast to decline in 4-5 years as the computer sector recovers, Asbeck said.

-------- energy

Task Force Made Hasty Overture to Opponents
Views 'Consistent' With Bush's Sought

By Dana Milbank and Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 11, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29025-2002Apr10?language=printer

The White House energy task force sought to include recommendations from environmental groups only if they were "consistent" with existing Bush administration policy, according to an internal administration e-mail released yesterday.

The information, contained in a court-ordered release of 950 pages of Energy Department documents, indicates that the administration made only a symbolic effort to include input from environmental groups. The administration first began to solicit environmentalists' recommendations on March 21, 2001, almost two months after Bush assembled the task force and after draft reports were already written.

A March 21 e-mail to Peter Karpoff, an Energy policy analyst, from Margot Anderson, the deputy assistant energy secretary for policy, listed 11 environmental groups and said: "Can you contact these groups and get them to send you any energy policy options they are advocating? Can you then review the proposals and recommend some we might like to support that are consistent with the Administration energy statements to date?"

The papers released yesterday were almost entirely copies of Energy Department officials' schedules and, like earlier materials released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, contained substantial deletions. Groups that filed the suit to win the release of administration records, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Judicial Watch, are seeking a court order for a fuller release of information. An Energy Department spokesman said yesterday's document release was the "final installment."

The schedules released yesterday include dates of meetings between Energy Department officials and dozens of representatives from the coal, nuclear and petroleum industries, both before and after the release of the administration's energy policy. The documents indicate that Deputy Energy Secretary Francis Blake had a meeting on Sept. 19 with Enron Corp. vice chairman Mark Frevert, Enron chief of staff Steve Kean and Enron vice president Linda Robertson. At the time of the meeting, the company was struggling for cash after a severe drop in its stock price. The papers did not indicate the subject of the meeting.

Other individuals and groups consulted by Energy Department officials included Mid American Energy Holdings Co.{cedil} Sinclair Oil Co., Reliant Energy, Exxon Mobil, BP Amoco, attorney C. Boyden Gray, and the lobbying firm of former GOP chairman Haley Barbour.

The documents also indicated that Bush's top political aides worked with energy industry officials to sell the White House's energy plan weeks before the policy was publicly released in May. Last April 25, Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and the White House deputy political director, Matt Schlapp, were scheduled to address a meeting of coal producers at the White House on "energy strategy" and "energy politics and action items." Also scheduled to brief the coal producers were Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Andrew Lundquist, the director of the administration's energy task force, and Bush economic adviser Robert McNally.

The administration said Rove, whose attendance was listed as tentative, did not attend the session.

Included in the papers are phone logs of March 21-23, 2001, of Karpoff, as he solicited information from the environmental groups. The logs contain notations such as "will e-mail some stuff" and "no response received" as well as concrete recommendations such as energy efficiency standards.

Jill Schroeder, an Energy Department spokeswoman, said the e-mail demonstrated that environmentalists were consulted. "To suggest that the entire energy policy pivots on one e-mail is absurd, but we are delighted to see the environmental groups have stopped denying that we contacted them and incorporated their own policies," she said.

The papers released yesterday also show that senior White House officials met on March 9, 2001 to discuss an "oxygenate waiver" for California. The meeting on oxygenates preceded an administration decision in June not to grant California a waiver of federal Clean Air Act provisions covering the formulation of low-pollution gasoline used in areas with heavy smog.

Democratic Gov. Gray Davis sought the waiver after announcing that he planned to ban the most widely used anti-smog oxygenate, the petrochemical MTBE, because traces of it had been found in drinking water in some communities. California officials argued that refiners in the state could produce a clean-burning gasoline without oxygenates.

But farm-state advocates of ethanol, a corn-based oxygenate that also can be added to gasoline to reduce some forms of pollution, pressed the administration not to waive the provisions of the Clean Air Act. Some ethanol producers hope their product will supplant MTBE in the huge California energy market.

Staff writers Ellen Nakashima and Mike Allen contributed to this report.

----

Signs Enron Bet on Price Increase Before California Power Shortage

New York Times
April 11, 2002
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/business/11CALI.html

WASHINGTON, April 10 - In the middle of 2000, on the eve of the California energy crisis, Enron was making increasingly large bets that electricity prices in the state would increase, according to Enron records cited by a California state senator leading an investigation into the state's power crisis.

The state senator, Joseph Dunn, is scheduled to testify Thursday in Washington before a United States Senate Commerce Committee hearing that will examine whether Enron manipulated power prices in California in 2000 and 2001, contributing to a surge in electricity prices that pushed California into a fiscal crisis.

Soon after the crisis began, California officials began accusing Enron and other energy companies of artificially causing shortages. But the energy companies, and some economists, have said that state officials created a deeply flawed energy market that led to the crisis. They said a big downturn in the availability of hydropower from the Pacific Northwest also played a significant role.

In other Enron-related developments in Washington today, House lawmakers prepared to do battle on Thursday over legislation to improve pension safeguards in the wake of Enron's collapse. Democratic leaders, who plan to introduce their own bill, said the Republican proposal offered cosmetic changes and scaled back some current safeguards. But Republicans said that they had proposed substantial reforms and that the Democratic legislation could lead some companies to curb pension coverage by imposing burdensome new rules.

In his prepared remarks to the Senate panel on Thursday, according to an advance copy of the testimony, Mr. Dunn, a Democrat from Orange County, will say that internal Enron records obtained by his state investigating committee showed that in the months before the energy crisis, Enron was making larger and larger bets that the price of electricity in California was going to rise.

"We know from the daily position reports, which Enron provided our committee, that as the summer of 2000 approached, Enron's traders had taken increasingly `long' positions in the market, meaning they had a growing amount of electricity to sell," Mr. Dunn will say.

Mr. Dunn also plans to testify that while the company was aggressively lobbying California officials to deregulate the state's electricity market, and promising big benefits for consumers, Enron documents showed that the company's "internal predictions do not appear to support" these "hyperbolic promises."

In addition, Mr. Dunn will assert that in 2000, before natural gas prices began a similar surge in California, Enron went from being "short," or betting that gas prices would fall, to betting that prices would rise. "Staggering shifts, a veritable sea change, from short to long positions are found in Enron's own books," he will say.

An Enron spokesman declined to comment today, but in the past the company has denied assertions that it played any role in the skyrocketing prices for electricity that crippled the state. Instead, Enron officials, and executives of other energy companies, have said that California officials deserved the blame for policies that stymied construction of power plants and made it hard for utilities to lock down long-term supplies of power, forcing them to obtain supplies from an increasingly volatile spot market.

Executives at Enron, which until it collapsed last year was the world's largest trader of natural gas and electricity, have maintained that the company made little profit from big moves in energy prices, generating profits instead by taking a tiny cut of the trades it did.

The California energy crisis finally eased last summer, as prices for electricity and natural gas dropped. California officials have credited the change to their decision to sign long-term contracts to buy power, as well as conservation by consumers and wholesale price caps applied by federal regulators. Energy companies have said cooler weather and other factors played a role.

Some lawmakers have questioned whether the steep drop in West Coast energy prices may have accelerated Enron's collapse, as profits from inflated power and gas prices were no longer able to cloak the company's financial problems.

Meanwhile, in the House today, even Democratic aides conceded that their pension proposal was certain to lose out to the Republican bill, but they hoped few Democrats would vote for the other side.

Tonight, one crucial Democrat, Representative Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, said in an interview that he would probably vote against the Republican proposal, even though it incorporates significant provisions of a bill on which he was a sponsor.

Mr. Cardin, who has written pension legislation with Representative Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, that has enjoyed wide bipartisan support, said he could not support the Republican proposal because, among other things, it went too far in allowing investment firms with potential conflicts of interest to advise employees on pension investment decisions.

Karen Friedman, director of policy strategies at the Pension Rights Center, said that the Republican bill "will do nothing to protect against future Enrons, will not protect employees who lose money in Enron-type situations, and, in fact, will roll back worker protections under current law."

But James Delaplane, vice president for retirement policy at the American Benefits Council, which represents large employers, said the investment advice provisions might be the most beneficial to workers. "It provides meaningful new tools to 401(k) investors to manage their retirement accounts and get professional advice with respect to investment decisions," he said.

Kevin Smith, a spokesman for the House Education and Workforce Committee, which produced the bill that is serving as the platform for the Republican legislation, said it would be hard for some Democrats to vote against the bill.

"It's hard to go home to your district," Mr. Smith said, "and say you voted against a modest compromise bill that would have done quite a few things that would have helped Enron workers."

-------- environment

Ultrasound Scrubs Water Filters

April 11, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-11-09.html#anchor8

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Ultrasound could be used to clean ceramic water filters, reducing the need for chemical cleansers, say engineers at Ohio State University.

"If water treatment plants could clean water with membrane filters, they could minimize the cost, safety and disposal issues associated with the use of harsh chemicals," said Harold Walker, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science at Ohio State.

Walker and colleague Linda Weavers, also an assistant professor, described their ultrasonic cleaning technique April 10 in a poster at the annual American Chemical Society meeting.

As an alternative to chemicals, researchers are studying ceramic membrane filters - honeycomb like networks of tiny channels separated by thin ceramic films or membranes. When water flows through the channels, the membranes act as sieves to catch contaminants such as clay, iron oxide, bacteria and viruses.

Over time, the membranes become clogged with contaminants and must be cleaned.

Based on recent research showing that sound waves can form and collapse bubbles inside a liquid, releasing heat and energy, Weavers and Walker decided to test whether collapsing bubbles could clean a ceramic filter. The engineers submerged a filter in water containing latex and silica particles to mimic the contaminants found in water treatment.

They used an ultrasonic probe to vibrate the water at 20 kilohertz, or 20,000 vibrations per second - a low frequency obtainable with typical ultrasound equipment. The 20 kilohertz vibrations caused bubbles for form and collapse, and kept the ceramic filter clean.

"The bubbles seemed to scour the surface of the filter," Weavers said. "Where the bubbles collapsed, tiny water jets formed and flushed away the contaminants."

Though the engineers are still not certain exactly how the process works, Weavers suspects that the jets sprang from vibrational nodes - locations along the surface of the filter where ultrasonic waves merge together and magnify each other.

With ultrasound as a cleaning method, water treatment plants would not have to remove filters to clean them, Walker said. Loosened contaminants would wash away in an exhaust flow separate from the clean water.

"If you left the ultrasound running, you could clean a filter while it was still in use, and keep it from ever getting clogged in the first place," Weavers added.

----

Bush administration decides against making it easier to eliminate more toxic chemicals

Thursday, April 11, 2002
By John Heilprin,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/04/04112002/ap_46911.asp

WASHINGTON - President Bush plans to ask Congress to support a global treaty phasing out a dozen of the world's most highly toxic chemicals but won't back a provision making it easier to eliminate more toxins, administration officials said Wednesday.

An announcement was scheduled for Thursday by EPA Administrator Christie Whitman and Acting Assistant Secretary of State Anthony F. Rock, whose agencies drafted the proposed legislation.

It comes nearly a year after Bush held a Rose Garden ceremony in advance of Earth Day to announce he would sign and ask the Senate to ratify a Clinton-era treaty on persistent organic pollutants, or POPs.

Bush's originally supported a treaty provision calling for expanding the list of chemicals that would be covered. But administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that would now be left for lawmakers to decide. "The intention is to work with the Congress on the process of adding additional chemicals," said one official.

Environmental groups have been nervously awaiting the administration's official request for the Senate to ratify and for Congress to implement the treaty, which takes aim at the chemicals widely referred to as the "dirty dozen." That group includes PCBs, dioxins, and furans along with DDT and other pesticides shown to contribute to developmental defects, cancer, and other problems in humans and animals.

But since most of the pollutants no longer are used in industrial countries such as the United States, environmentalists said dropping the provision for eliminating future chemicals and leaving it up to Congress ignores some of the most important protections under the treaty. "It's unfortunate that the Bush administration is undermining one of the very few environmental protections that they've supported," said Jeremiah Baumann, environmental health specialist for U.S. PIRG, an advocacy group. "They are omitting one of the most important pieces of this international treaty that would protect human health from dozens of harmful chemicals on the market."

Even if the add-on provision were included, enlarging the list of chemicals to be banned would still require rigorous scientific review.

A year has gone by since, flanked by Whitman and Secretary of State Colin Powell, Bush said at a ceremony that the United States "must work to eliminate or at least severely restrict the release of these toxins without delay."

"The risks are great and the need for action is clear," Bush said.

Many of the dozen pollutants in the treaty remain popular in developing countries even though they break down slowly, travel long distances in the environment, and have been linked to cancer and birth defects. Traces have been found in the Arctic, transported by air currents from hundreds of miles away.

Under the treaty, production and use of 9 of the 12 chemicals would be banned as soon as the treaty takes effect, which would take at least several years. About 25 countries would be allowed to continue to use DDT to combat malaria in accordance with World Health Organization guidelines, pending development of safer solutions.

Releases of dioxins and furans - toxic byproducts of waste burning and industrial production - would be reduced and eventually eliminated where feasible, according to the treaty. Other chemicals on the list are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the pesticides aldrin, chlordane, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, toxaphene, and hexachlorobenzene.

The treaty also establishes an international fund of perhaps up to $150 million to help countries develop and use substitutes for the "dirty dozen" chemicals. And it allows for an expansion of the number of chemicals to be covered, although adding to the list would require rigorous scientific review.

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants must be ratified by 50 countries to take effect. Whitman signed it on behalf of the United States on May 23.

----

General Electric Offers Hudson River Settlement

April 11, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-11-07.html

ALBANY, New York, General Electric (GE) has offered to devise and execute a cleanup plan for the upper Hudson River, hoping to avoid additional lawsuits over the polluted sediments for which the company is blamed.

General Electric's Hudson Falls Plant and Bakers Falls on the Hudson River (Two photos courtesy EPA)

After battling for two decades to avoid a half billion dollar cleanup project, GE said Tuesday it would begin testing for PCB hotspots in the Hudson this summer, and contract with environmental specialists to dredge contaminated sediments from the river. The company said it would pay for the dredging and reimburse the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for $37 million in previous government expenditures.

GE filed what it called a "good faith offer" with the EPA, volunteering to design a dredging plan to remove sediments laden with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). About 1.3 million pounds of PCBs were deposited by two GE plants that manufactured electric capacitors in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, New York.

Use of PCBs in capacitor insulation was banned in 1977, but prior to that time, GE had been dumping the chemical for more than 35 years. The Hudson River was declared a Superfund site in 1983.

Two PCB deposits are shown here, one indicated by the trees in the river, and the second by the yellow area on the bank.

PCBs are probable carcinogens in humans and are known to cause cancer in animals. Other long term health effects of PCBs observed in laboratory animals include a reduced ability to fight infections, low birth weights and learning problems.

"GE has proposed a format and a process for implementing the dredging project EPA has selected,'' wrote Stephen Ramsey, GE's vice president of corporate environmental programs, in a prepared statement. "This is a major step toward what we hope will be a cooperative relationship for ensuring the implementation of the dredging project selected by [EPA Administrator Christie] Whitman.'

GE plans to negotiate with the EPA over its proposed cleanup settlement over the next 60 days, Ramsey said.

Last year, GE filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Superfund law, which requires polluters to pay for cleanups regardless of whether their releases of toxins were legal at the time. That suit is still pending.

The EPA issues a statement Tuesday, saying "we are having discussions with GE about their response and have asked the company to provide additional information and some clarifications," regarding potential loopholes in GE's proposed settlement.

Dredging contaminated river sediments (Photo courtesy GE)

For example, GE said it will not commit to completing the entire cleanup until further studies clarify how much the dredging will cost, and what the work will entail.

"There is ample time to complete the remedial action negotiations while design is ongoing," GE argues in its letter. "This approach is consistent with EPA guidance and practice since it avoids delay and will enhance the prospects of reaching an agreement."

"GE will work constructively with EPA on this project and our offer reflects that commitment," wrote GE's Ramsey.

----

Bush wants Congress to get rid of the 'dirty dozen'

04/11/2002
Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2002/04/11/treaty.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush plans to ask Congress to support a global treaty phasing out a dozen highly toxic chemicals but without a provision allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to add more pollutants to the elimination list, administration officials say.

The announcement was being made Thursday by EPA Administrator Christie Whitman and Acting Assistant Secretary of State Anthony F. Rock, whose agencies drafted the proposed legislation.

Bush said nearly a year ago in a Rose Garden ceremony just before Earth Day that he would sign and ask the Senate to ratify the Clinton-era treaty on persistent organic pollutants, known as POPs.

Now the Bush administration is formally asking the Senate for ratification and for Congress to approve accompanying legislation required to implement the treaty - minus the provision allowing more pollutants to be added in the future, administration officials said late Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The intention is to work with the Congress on the process of adding additional chemicals," one official said.

But critics said leaving out the add-on provision makes it more likely that Congress will either not deal with the issue or will approve a process for including new chemicals that would be too onerous because it would require amendments to the enabling law.

The disputed provision would allow adding to the list of chemicals to be banned, but only after a rigorous scientific review involving analysis and recommendation by a science committee and approval by a majority of nations involved.

A former senior U.S. negotiator on the treaty, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the science-based approach for eliminating more toxic chemicals was considered an essential component of the treaty.

Environmentalists noted that most of the pollutants among the group commonly referred to as the "dirty dozen" - PCBs, dioxins and furans, along with DDT and other pesticides - already are no longer used in industrial countries such as the United States.

Therefore, they said it was essential to include the provision for extending the list to still more pollutants that have been shown to contribute to developmental defects, cancer and other problems in humans and animals.

"They are omitting one of the most important pieces of this international treaty that would protect human health from dozens of harmful chemicals on the market," said Jeremiah Baumann, environmental health specialist for U.S. PIRG, an advocacy group.

Many of the dozen pollutants remain popular in developing nations despite their resistance to breaking down quickly in the environment, ability to travel long distances and their link to cancer and birth defects. Traces of them have been found scattered over the globe, including Arctic regions.

Production and use of nine of the 12 chemicals would be banned as soon as the treaty takes effect, which would take at least several years. About 25 countries would be allowed to continue to use DDT to combat malaria in accordance with World Health Organization guidelines, pending development of safer solutions.

Releases of dioxins and furans - toxic byproducts of waste burning and industrial production - would be reduced and eventually eliminated where feasible, according to the treaty.

Other chemicals on the list are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the pesticides aldrin, chlordane, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, toxaphene and hexachlorobenzene.

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants must be ratified by 50 countries to take effect. Whitman signed it on behalf of the United States on May 23.

-------- genetics

Testing of Human Embryos Sought

April 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Dolly-Scientists.html

LONDON (AP) -- The creators of Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep, will soon seek permission to carry out experiments on human embryos, one of the scientists said.

The Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, Scotland, will apply to the government's fertility authority for a license in the next few months to investigate ways of harvesting human stem cells that are found in the growing embryo, said Professor Ian Wilmut, head of the institute's gene expression and development division.

``It is a significant shift for us and a natural way to go,'' Wilmut said late Wednesday.

Experts believe stem cells have the potential to treat degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

The Roslin Institute, which drew worldwide attention after Dolly was born in 1996, also is considering how it could apply its technique, cell nuclear replacement, to human embryos.

The scientists are proposing to establish methods for deriving human embryonic stem cells by using surplus embryos or embryos created specifically for the purpose by IVF.

Last month, embryo stem cell research in Britain moved into high gear when regulators granted the first licenses allowing scientists to extract the cells from donated spare IVF embryos and experiment with them.

Several groups around the world have already started research on embryonic stem cells -- blank-slate cells found in early stage embryos that go on to form every type of specialized cell in the body. However, Britain has the most open laws governing the controversial area of research and is widely tipped to lead the emerging field.

Doctors hope they will be able to cure or treat hundreds of diseases by extracting stem cells from embryos and directing them to develop into any type of tissue needed for transplant.

Britain is the only country so far to have legalized human cloning for stem cell research.

In another world first, Britain is setting up a national stem cell bank, similar to a blood bank, to store stem cells and make them available to researchers.

Meanwhile, Dolly the sheep recently developed arthritis at the relatively early age of 5 1/2 years, stirring debate that the current cloning procedures might be flawed.

In fact, Dolly's problem could raise new doubts about cloning animals for use in human transplantation and about cloning humans themselves.

--------

Bush Presses Senate to Ban Cloning

April 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Cloning.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Aligning themselves with 40 Nobel laureates, senators who support human cloning research say they will not let President Bush's efforts to impose a cloning ban jeopardize the promise such research holds for curing disease.

Bush on Wednesday pressed the Senate for such a ban, saying that cloning humans in and of itself is unconscionable, and that even for research purposes it could set the nation on a path ``into a world we could live to regret.''

The president expressed his support for a ban proposed by Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Mary Landrieu, D-La.

``Life is a creation, not a commodity,'' Bush said.

But the president's appeal did little to slow efforts by a handful of senators to craft a compromise that would ban the cloning of human beings but leave room for embryo research. One author, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Wednesday there was ``a significant group in the Senate determined to defeat'' an outright ban.

``If the millions of people who suffer from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and heart disease and cancer -- and every other known malady -- realize that potential cures are going to be impeded, they'll let their senators know a thing or two,'' Specter said. ``There's going to be a real fight on the Senate floor.''

Bush countered with a veiled warning: ``It would be a mistake for the U.S. Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber.''

At issue is the production of embryos that are genetically identical to a donor human being. Bush voiced his opposition frequently last year, and in August he restricted federally financed stem cell research to 64 existing stem cell lines taken from embryos discarded by fertility clinics.

The House passed a ban on all human cloning in July but the Senate has not acted on it. Many senators object to the idea of cloning humans, but are not averse to cloning embryos for research that could cure disease.

Brownback told an anti-cloning rally on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that the ban was ``clearly a winnable issue.'' Standing before a stack of petitions with 400,000 signatures, he said, ``Cloning is wrong, period. Creating human life to destroy it is wrong.''

Specter, along with Sens. Edward Kennedy, Tom Harkin and Dianne Feinstein, proposed allowing ``nuclear transplantation'' research on illnesses such as cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

``We must not let the misplaced fears of today deny patients the cures of tomorrow,'' said Kennedy, D-Mass. ``Congress was right to place medicine over ideology in the past, and we should do the same again.''

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., urged lawmakers to heed a call from 40 Nobel laureates who support research cloning, and he said it is possible to bar ethically repugnant uses of cloned tissue without blocking the research.

``The president wants to ban it all, and I think he's wrong,'' Daschle said. ``And I think the American people are on our side on this issue.''

The Nobel winners, including pioneers in cancer research and study of other life-threatening diseases, said the Brownback proposal, if passed, would have ``a chilling effect on all scientific research in the United States.'' They called for legislation that would set criminal and civil penalties for creating a cloned human being.

``The cloning of a human being should be prohibited. Nuclear transplantation technology, on the other hand, is meant to produce stem cells, not babies,'' said Paul Berg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1980.

But for many senators, the matter was less scientific than personal. For example, Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., a moderate who has backed Bush on other high-stakes legislation, said he supports the Specter option because his son has juvenile diabetes and his late mother suffered from Alzheimer's.

Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he supports the Brownback ban -- an endorsement the White House viewed as key, because Frist is a heart-transplant surgeon whose views on medical topics are respected by his peers.

``Does the promise of human cloning embryo experiments ... justify what is required today to conduct those experiments -- and that is the purposeful creation of human embryos for experimentation and destruction? The answer to that question to me is no,'' Frist said.

Bush called the prospects of successful research from clones ``highly speculative,'' and said he fears nightmare scenarios in which embryos are created so they can be plundered for body parts, so that parents can have custom-ordered children or so that women's eggs can be sold at high prices.

``Once cloned embryos were available, implantation would take place,'' Bush said. ``Even the tightest regulations and strict policing would not prevent or detect the birth of cloned babies.''

Michael West, president and CEO of Worcester, Mass.-based Advanced Cell Technology, disputed that point. His company announced in November that it had cloned a six-cell human embryo for the purpose of culling stem cells.

``I'm not proud to be an American when our leadership doesn't take the time to get the science right,'' West said.

--------

Scientists Discover Produce Gene

April 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Fresher-Tomatoes.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists say they have figured out a way to make tomatoes taste fresher and last longer by tinkering with a gene that controls ripening.

The researchers, who report their findings in Friday's issue of the journal Science, believe the procedure may also work with strawberries, bananas, bell peppers, melons and other produce.

``For understanding tomato ripening and eventually taste, this could be the Holy Grail,'' said Jim Giovannoni, an Agriculture Department scientist who led the research.

Gardeners know that tomatoes that ripen on the vine are much tastier than the tomatoes sold in supermarkets. That's because farm-grown tomatoes have to be picked before they ripen and develop their flavor. To turn them red and restart their ripening, tomatoes are treated with ethylene gas, a natural ripening agent in fruit.

Giovannoni's team of scientists turned off the ripening gene in the tomato plant, which would allow farmers to leave the tomatoes on the vine for several days longer. The tomato would still be firm enough for shipping across the country.

The tomatoes also would be healthier, because vine-ripened tomatoes have higher levels of lycopene, an antioxidant that has been linked to lower rates of prostate and other cancers.

This isn't the first time that scientists have genetically engineered a tomato to last longer.

The Flavr Savr tomato, which was developed through modification of a gene that causes softening, was approved for sale in 1994 but ran into production and shipping problems and was off the market by 1997. The tomatoes were so delicate they were difficult to transport without damage.

The Flavr Savr didn't taste that good because of the variety from which they were developed, said Chris Watkins, a horticulture professor at Cornell University. ``There was very little flavor to save,'' he said.

In the early 1960s, a Cornell scientist discovered how to extend the shelf life of tomatoes by crossing a plant that had a defective ripening gene with plants that were normal.

Giovannoni's team identified two genes, one that regulates ripening and another that controls floral development.

The research could speed the breeding of improved varieties of tomatoes, but they are years away from reaching supermarkets. New biotech crops must be reviewed by USDA and other agencies.

Scientists from the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Ithaca, N.Y., Texas A&M University and Jeallots Hill Research Station in Britain also participated in the research.

-------- health

China Announces Jump in AIDS Cases

April 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-AIDS.html

BEIJING (AP) -- The Chinese government on Thursday announced a 17 percent increase in the number of Chinese infected with the AIDS virus and sharply raised its estimate of the disease's spread.

There are 30,736 people confirmed to be carrying the virus and 1,594 people with full-blown AIDS, though the true number of cases could be as high as 200,000, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The report said up to 850,000 people could be infected with the HIV virus, and 100,000 might have died from the disease.

The number of confirmed cases was more than 17 percent above the figure announced in mid-2001, while the estimate of people with the virus was more than 40 percent higher than the previous official estimate of 600,000.

The report noted that authorities believe China's official AIDS statistics are far lower than the true figure because of poor reporting by local health officials.

``Experts believe that over half of the 200,000 AIDS patients have lost their lives,'' Xinhua said.

The report added to growing official candor in recent months about the spread of AIDS in China after years of denying that it was a problem.

The most dramatic disclosure came in August, when the Health Ministry said the number of confirmed cases had jumped 67 percent in the first half of 2001.

Intravenous drug use accounted for 68 percent of infections, while poor sanitation at companies that buy blood accounted for 9.7 percent, Xinhua said.

That was the most specific official estimate yet of people infected by China's blood-buying industry, which is blamed for spreading the virus to thousands of poor, rural villagers.

Collectors bought blood from villagers, pooled it and extracted plasma -- the liquid part of the blood sought for medical uses. Then, instead of being thrown out as is usually done in donations, the rest of the blended blood was injected back into the sellers, apparently to limit their blood loss.

In the village of Wenlou in the central province of Henan, the hardest-hit area, 43 percent of people who sold blood are infected, Deputy Health Minister Yin Dakui said in August.

Authorities in Henan have detained reporters who tried to find information about the outbreak and harassed Chinese AIDS activists who tried to publicize it.

China held its first AIDS conference in November, and a state-owned pharmaceutical company announced plans to produce low-cost anti-AIDS drugs.

Despite increased openness by health officials at the national level, many local leaders are accused of suppressing information about the disease for fear of acknowledging prostitution or drug trafficking in their areas.


-------- ACTIVISTS

4/20 demo @ White House, 11 am for Palestine

- Forwarded message from Al-Awda Palestine Right of Return NY/NJ -

ALL OUT FOR PALESTINE!

DEMONSTRATE AT THE WHITE HOUSE SATURDAY APRIL 20

11 A.M. (Gather at the Ellipse, south side of the White House, Constitution and 16th St. NW)

Al-Awda Palestine Right of Return NY/NJ calls on all Arab and Muslim people and all people of conscience to participate in a mass demonstration for Palestine on Saturday, April 20 gathering at the White House (south side on the Ellipse, 16th & Constitution NW).

Thousands of people from the Arab and Muslim community will join tens of thousands of others who will denounce the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. The demonstration is at the White House because the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (the initiator of the action) is mobilizing opposition to the policy of George W. Bush which has given the green light and full backing to Ariel Sharon's butchery.

This demonstration will call for an immediate end to U.S. aid to Israel and will highlight the just cause and heroic resistance of the Palestinian people.

Bring buses, vans and cars from our community to make this demonstration at the White House a massive turnout. The *BUS DROP-OFF* will be at Constitution Avenue and 16th and Street NW (one block south of the White House).

On April 22 at 5:30 PM, Al-Awda, along with many other organizations and supporters of the Palestinian people, will be demonstrating at the AIPAC Conference (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) at the Washington Hilton. War criminal Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush are scheduled to be honored at the AIPAC banquet.

For more information go to http://www.internationalANSWER.org or http://www.al-awda.org

----

Police prepared for IMF protests

By Arlo Wagner
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 11, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20020411-62275810.htm

D.C. police have readied themselves for World Bank and war protesters who will descend on the city April 20, but officials are holding out hope for nonviolent demonstrations.

"The code word for Saturday, Sunday and Monday is 'peace,'" said Executive Assistant Chief Terrance W. Gainer. "Our hope will be that we will only be stuck trying to handle a peaceful crowd."

The Metropolitan Police Department has planned for strength in numbers: Leaves of absence have been canceled and overtime arranged for the 3,609 D.C. police who will be clearly visible to protesters. Police are expecting crowds of between 10,000 and 20,000.

There also will be civil-disturbance units, 200 National Guardsmen and about 500 officers from police departments in Arlington, Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

"We will not brook any destructive behavior," Chief Gainer said. "We will use our strength in the law if we must."

The first demonstration is set for April 20 outside the World Bank headquarters near the White House on H Street NW, where the International Monetary Fund will hold its annual spring meeting.

A week of demonstrations against the World Bank and IMF in April 2000 resulted in about 1,200 arrests. At the time, D.C. police occasionally used their batons to push back crowds and pepper spray to clear sidewalks and streets. The department was widely praised for keeping the estimated 10,000 demonstrators under control.

"We're working from the playbook of April 2000," Chief Gainer said. "We are well-prepared. We continue to sharpen our skills on these IMF protests."

Of course, that was before the September 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and Chief Gainer said police "are sensitive" to the heightened concerns about security.

Two parade permits and several National Park Service permits that allow gatherings have been issued to protesters, which include college students against the war in Afghanistan and Palestinians against U.S. aid to Israel.

Police expect large numbers of counterdemonstrators, particularly on April 22, when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference.

Some streets will be closed April 20 when anti-war and anti-racism demonstrators plan to rally and march from the Ellipse south of the White House to the Justice Department and then to the U.S. Capitol.

The Metropolitan Police Department's 13 digital cameras will be used to help catch violators and prepare for future demonstrations, Chief Gainer said.

The police Mobile Command Center will be stationed near the largest demonstration. Refurbished with electronic gear at a cost of $65,000, it will be the meeting place for commanders and will maintain contact with other protest sites.

If the demonstrations do grow destructive or violent, Chief Gainer said stations are prepared to efficiently book many protesters. Two years ago, the booking stations were overwhelmed by mass arrests.

Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey and Chief Gainer met with the Washington Board of Trade on Tuesday to outline preparations and recommend that downtown businesses avoid scheduling deliveries on April 20 and 21, and keep trash containers empty.

George Washington University, whose campus is near the World Bank headquarters, will operate on a normal schedule. However, nonstudents will be prohibited from staying in university residence halls, and all students, faculty and staff have been advised to carry their school ID cards.

----

2nd Day of Antigovernment Protests Slows Venezuela

New York Times
April 11, 2002
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/international/americas/11VENE.html

CARACAS, Venezuela, April 10 - A confrontation between antigovernment protesters and President Hugo Chávez roiled Venezuela for a second day today. Exports of crude oil sagged, and two generals spoke out against the president.

In the second day of a nationwide work stoppage by labor and business leaders incensed by Mr. Chávez's left-leaning policies, thousands of protesters took to the streets, where sporadic clashes broke out with pro-government demonstrators. The United States, which depends on Venezuela for 15 percent of its oil imports, closely monitored the protests.

Further disruptions are widely expected in the days ahead, after protest organizers announced that the strike that they called on Tuesday morning would extend indefinitely.

Mr. Chávez's ministers acknowledged for the first time that the strike had hurt oil production, but they played down the disruptions and said the production problems could be easily corrected.

"Oil operations are absolutely normal at this moment," the energy and mines minister, Álvaro Silva, said.

But oil experts here and abroad said tankers were idle at terminals as refineries had dramatically cut back operations. Venezuela, with the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East, produces 2.5 million barrels a day, shipping 1.3 million of crude and an additional 300,000 barrels of refined products like gasoline and heating oil to the United States.

A barrel of oil has 42 gallons.

"There are some ships on the sea right now, but from what we know there is no loading of tankers in Venezuela," said John Lichtblau, chairman of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, an industry-supported consulting group in New York. "Their refineries are operating at well below normal capacity," including plants in Venezuela and elsewhere in the Caribbean.

The effects were not likely to be felt in the United States right away, because tankers take nearly a week to travel to refineries in Louisiana. Venezuela also has substantial storage capacity, here, in the Bahamas and in Curaçao, able to hold 35 million barrels of crude and refined products, said Luis Giuisti, a former president of the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela.

Experts said, however, an extended strike could damage the oil-dependent economy and be troubling for the United States, which has viewed Venezuela as a dependable oil exporter.

The government's woes seemed to worsen when an army commander, Brig. Gen. Néstor González, criticized the president today at a news conference, accusing Mr. Chávez of supporting leftist rebels in neighboring Colombia and governing like an autocrat.

General González suggested that the military might act against the president.

"If the high command has to say to the president, `Mr. President, the cause of all of this is you, now leave,' then the high command has to take that position," General González said.

Another general, Rafael Damiani of the National Guard, urged the military not to use force against protesters.

The message caused confusion, because the government has not resorted to violence. Several ministers denied that there were plans to use force or enact a state of emergency.

The officers' statements prompted Defense Minister José Vicente Rangel to warn that disciplinary action would be taken against the dissident officers. He stressed to reporters that the military remained loyal to Mr. Chávez, a former army paratrooper who tried to take power in a coup in 1992, before he eventually won election six years later.

"The situation is absolutely normal in the military field," Mr. Rangel said.

The strike began on Tuesday, after labor and business leaders had decided that it was the only step that they could take to prod Mr. Chávez to reverse his decision to appoint five allies to the board of Petróleos de Venezuela.

Much of the opposition is rooted in widespread displeasure with Mr. Chávez's policies. White-collar workers view him as a left-wing autocrat. Unions resent his attempts to impose his control on them.

Thousands of people have taken to plazas and busy avenues to call for Mr. Chávez's resignation.

Officials said most Venezuelans continued to support Mr. Chávez, adding that few people took part in the work stoppage, which began to wane in its second day.

----

Chavez Foes March in Venezuela, Head for Palace

April 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-venezuela.html

CARACAS, Venezuela - Half a million Venezuelans clamoring for President Hugo Chavez to resign marched to the presidential palace in Caracas on Thursday in a huge protest that marked the most powerful challenge so far to his three-year-old rule.

With National Guard troops deployed to protect the palace and several thousand supporters of the president also gathered there, the country's military high command made a public appeal for calm and called on people to avoid violence.

Police fired tear gas to keep groups of the marchers away from the palace and running battles broke out as some Chavez supporters threw stones at the anti-government protesters.

At least 500,000 anti-Chavez demonstrators, beating pots and pans, chanting ``Out, Out'' and waving national flags, marched down Caracas' main avenues, shutting down traffic as they moved in a mass from the east to the center of the city.

Turning out to back an indefinite general strike called by labor and business foes of the president, the anti-government demonstrators had gathered earlier in eastern Caracas, where speaker after speaker demanded that the firebrand left-wing president should step down along with his Cabinet.

His critics accuse him of trying to impose a Cuban-style left-wing regime upon the world's fourth biggest oil exporter. They also criticize him for failing to deliver election promises to reduce chronic poverty, widespread unemployment and serious crime.

``Chavez, get out now, once and for all, we don't want you any more,'' Carlos Ortega, leader of the country's largest trades union CTV, hollered to the crowd.

March organizers called for people in other cities across the country to take to the streets to protest against Chavez.

Appearing in a national television broadcast with other members of the military high command, Venezuelan Armed Forces chief Gen. Lucas Rincon said the country's security forces were carrying out their duty to maintain law and order.

``Apart from a few spots of trouble, the situation in the country is normal,'' he said.

PRESIDENT IN HIS OFFICE

``I call on the Venezuelan people to stay calm ... to reject incitements to violence, disorder and anarchy,'' he said. Rincon denied reports the president, who has stayed out of sight during the protest, was under arrest at military headquarters.

``He's in his office (in Miraflores),'' he added.

As the anti-Chavez marchers headed for the palace, aides of Chavez called on his supporters to go to Miraflores to demonstrate in his defense. ``Let everyone go to Miraflores to defend the revolution,'' pro-Chavez National Assembly Deputy Juan Barreto said.

The huge opposition march, one of the biggest ever, went ahead hours after the embattled government offered a dialogue to its foes in a bid to ward off the threat of economic chaos caused by two days of a nationwide work stoppage.

The labor and business shutdown, combined with a continuing protest by staff of the state oil giant PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela), sapped economic activity and disrupted oil operations in Latin America's fourth biggest economy.

``The cost is immense,'' said Pedro Carmona, president of the leading business association Fedecamaras, which along with the CTV (Venezuela Workers' Confederation), organized the strike.

Caracas, for a third day, had fewer vehicles and pedestrians on its streets, apart from the protest. Many shops and companies remained closed and the effects of the stoppage were being felt in other cities.

Chavez has been facing mounting opposition for months from political foes, business and labor leaders, and even dissident military officers. An army general on Wednesday called him a lying traitor and urged him to quit.

``We can't carry on putting up with this madman,'' said one of the marchers, Aurora Hernandez.

Chavez, an ex-paratrooper who defends a self-proclaimed revolution as a campaign to help the country's poor majority, initially dismissed the strike organizers as a handful of ''corrupt oligarchs and petty politicians.''

But in a more conciliatory response late on Wednesday, Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel offered a dialogue to the government opponents, although he called the strike irresponsible and predicted it would fail.

Rangel said no state of emergency would be declared by the president and there was no threat of a military coup.

Although the defense minister insisted the armed forces were behind the president, an army general, Nestor Gonzalez, Wednesday publicly criticized Chavez and urged him to resign.

The call followed criticism from other dissident officers in February, played down at the time by the president.

Rangel sought to reassure the nation the government would not abandon democratic practices to tackle the strike conflict, and he urged opponents to make the same pledge.

OIL INDUSTRY DISRUPTION

But there was increasing concern the general strike would lead to unsustainable political and economic turmoil.

The most serious disruption has been to the state oil company PDVSA, where dissident executives and employees have staged a six-week protest to oppose management changes made by Chavez.

Despite repeated public assurances from the government that the oil industry was not being affected, industry sources said Thursday half of the 960,000 barrel per day Amuay-Cardon complex, Venezuela's largest refinery, had been shut down.

Disruptions were also reported to key oil output, refining and export operations.

------

Please, Dad, Tell Me: How Do I Stop Being Complicit?

by Sarah Shields
Wednesday, April 10, 2002
by CommonDreams.org
http://commondreams.org/views02/0410-01.htm

Dear Dad,

It was an enormously heavy responsibility you raised me with. You taught me that the Jews have been oppressed for centuries. You taught me that the holocaust could only happen because the Germans were silent. You taught me that Jews must never, never, never be silent when injustice occurs, because our silence makes us complicit.

You taught me about history, and you taught me by your actions. As a rabbi, you preached against racism in the south, and had to leave a pulpit in Louisiana when they threatened to kill our family. You worked for open housing laws, insisting that there should be no ghettos in America like the ones your parents had lived in in Europe. You counseled Jewish kids who were conscientious objectors, eliciting the hostility of many who believed that the Vietnam war was a valiant struggle for justice in our time.

It is a heavy responsibility I carry now. Because now I am complicit. I have not stood in front of the tanks that are killing other mothers' children in refugee camps. I have not ridden in ambulances to help them get past checkpoints so that the injured could be cured. I have not laid in front of the bulldozers to prevent their destroying a family's shelter.

What can I do about this injustice?

Palestinians are losing their property, their lives, and their children every day. The Israeli army shoots at unarmed civilians, imposing collective punishments that make it impossible for Palestinians to get food, water, or power. For decades, Israel has paid settlers to move into occupied territory.

International law reflects the consensus of the world's sense of right. International law seeks to protect the powerless. And international law is clear. Occupying countries have to protect the lives and property of the local population. It is not legal to establish settlements at all. Why do Israel and the US pay Israelis to move into them?

There are Palestinian terrorists. They have been raised under occupation. Know what? Israeli soldiers treat occupied people the same way other armies have treated occupied people. The stories are horrendous. Arbitrary beatings. Tauntings. Killings. Arrests without charge. Torture. Threatening parents in front of children. Stepping on "prisoners" trying to move between check points. Strip searches. The use of power to humiliate.

When people are humiliated, and have no homes to return to because the homes have been destroyed by the occupying army, When people are humiliated, and have no family to hold them in their arms because they have been shot and unable to get medical care, When people are humiliated, and have no hope for the future, They see no alternative to violence.

You taught me Judaism's universal message. "I am a Jew because in all places where there are tears and suffering the Jew weeps." I believed Edmond Fleg's words, "I am a Jew because Israel places man and his unity above nations and above Israel itself."

Dad, we have become the oppressors. One rabbinic student told me years ago when I lived in Israel that this was the meaning behind the warning to remember that we were slaves in the land of Egypt. We were warned to remember, because sometimes slaves want to become masters.

We are the oppressors, and we are also the victims. Jews are being killed, and at the same time, the moral imperative that you taught me was part of being Jewish seems to be vanishing. I believe that Jews are being used by an American administration to accomplish its own ends, ends that have nothing to do with the ideals of Jews. We need to shout aloud that 80% of the billions that the US gives Israel in aid must be spent on weapons, and that more than half of those weapons are built in Texas. And Jews are being used by an Israeli government that has no interest except territorial expansion. Sharon is the ideological heir to Jabotinsky. Land for peace was never in that ideology. War makes conquest possible, and all the people of Israel and Palestine are being drawn, tragically and together, into that war.

We must act, and we must act immediately. Jews are being used to legitimize the slaughter of Palestinians.

Please, Dad, tell me how to be like you taught me to be. How do I stop being complicit?

I love you. Sarah

Sarah Shields is an associate professor of Middle East history at UNC Chapel Hill. E-mail: sshields@email.unc.edu


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